MEXICO
Six arrests in Spaniards’ rape
Six men have been arrested after the rapes of six Spanish women tourists near Acapulco, the country’s top law enforcement official said on Wednesday. “We do now have six people arrested, who have confessed to everything,” including a 16-year-old, Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam told a press conference. Gunmen wearing masks burst into a beach bungalow where 14 tourists were staying on Feb. 4, tying up seven Spanish men and raping the six Spanish women, while sparing a Mexican woman.
PERU
Temple from 3000 BC found
Archeologists discovered a temple in Lima that may predate Stonehenge and be the oldest known in the Americas. The rectangular stone building in the El Paraiso archeological complex in the north of the capital may date to 3000 BC, Deputy Culture Minister Rafael Varon said in an e-mailed statement on Wednesday. The building, which covers an area of 48m2 and was plastered with a mud layer and decorated with red paint, may be as old as Caral, a 5,000-year-old temple north of Lima discovered in 2001, said Jose Hudtwalcker, an archeologist at the Riva y Aguero Institute in Lima. At 3000 BC, the temple would predate the Step Pyramid in Egypt.
CANADA
Police accused of abuse
Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the federal police on Wednesday of striking fear in the hearts of First Nations women, offering up testimonies of alleged police threats, abuse and even rape. The fear of police expressed by 50 women and girls interviewed in the north of British Columbia — the focus of the HRW investigation — was comparable with what its researchers witnessed in post-war Iraq and Libya, the group said. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said it took the allegations “very seriously.” However, the RCMP added: “It is impossible to deal with such public and serious complaints when we have no method to determine who the victims of the accused are.” The report does not identify any victims and perpetrators or specific dates for the alleged incidents. Ottawa rejected HRW’s calls for a public inquiry. HRW interviewed 42 women and eight girls in 10 communities along a highway connecting Prince George and Prince Rupert in July and August last year. The RCMP is investigating 13 homicides and five cases of women reported missing on or near the 724km highway, described on hand-painted signposts as the “Highway of Tears,” since the late 1960s.
UNITED STATES
Rhino horn ring broken
Three people have been charged with participating in an international smuggling ring that traffics in the horns of endangered black rhinos. The Fish and Wildlife Service and Justice Department have launched “Operation Crash” using undercover agents and electronic surveillance in an effort to stop the black market trade in rhino horns, which has led to poaching and has reduced the world’s rhino population by more than 90 percent since 1970. This week, federal grand juries in Newark, New Jersey and Miami indicted Zhifei Li, a 28-year-old Chinese national, for alleged smuggling. He allegedly conspired to smuggle more than 20 raw rhinoceros horns from the country to Hong Kong in 2011 and last year. Shusen Wei was charged with offering to bribe a federal agent in the Li case. In New York, a third man, Qing Wang, was charged on Wednesday for allegedly smuggling libation cups carved from rhinoceros horns from New York to Li via Hong Kong.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of