ECUADOR
Former president sentenced
The Supreme Court has sentenced in absentia former president Jamil Mahuad to 12 years in prison for misappropriating public funds during the country’s late 1990s banking crisis. In its ruling the court said that it had settled on a severe punishment because the consequences of Mahuad’s crimes are still hurting the nation’s depositors.
UNITED KINGDOM
King not a hunchback: study
The Shakespearean depiction of notorious king Richard III as a “bunch-backed toad” is a “complete fabrication,” according to results of scans of the monarch’s recently discovered skeleton that were published yesterday. Scientists said the scans showed that Richard’s spine has a “well-balanced curve” that could have been hidden under clothes or armor. “Examination of Richard III’s remains shows that he had a scoliosis, thus confirming that the Shakespearean description of a ‘bunch-backed toad’ is a complete fabrication — yet more proof that, while the plays are splendid dramas, they are also most certainly fiction not fact,” said Phil Stone, chairman of the Richard III Society.
UNITED KINGDOM
Iraq exchanges made public
Officials have agreed to make public some details of the exchanges between then-prime minister Tony Blair and then-US president George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq — but the full versions of the conversations will remain secret. An inquiry into decisions and mistakes in the planning and execution of the war began in 2009. Its report has been delayed for several years by negotiations over the inclusion of classified material, including 25 notes and 130 records of conversations between Blair and Bush ahead of the US-led 2003 invasion. On Thursday, the inquiry’s chief, retired civil servant John Chilcot, confirmed that a deal had been reached to publish “gists” and selected quotes from the messages.
UNITED STATES
Virgin signs space flight deal
Virgin group founder Richard Branson’s dream of commercial space flights took a step nearer reality after Virgin Galactic signed a deal with aviation authorities to let it blast paying customers into space, the company said on Thursday. Commercial flights are to begin by the end of this year and more than 600 people have already signed up at US$250,000 each to take a trip on SpaceShipTwo. The Virgin announcement came hours before Elon Musk, chief executive and chief designer of SpaceX, presented his company’s “next generation” Dragon V2 spacecraft at an event in California on Thursday evening.
UNITED STATES
Teen birth rate hits low
The birth rate among teens and young women dropped to record lows last year, while the rate among older women hit highs not seen in a half century, according to government data released on Thursday. The general fertility rate in the nation reached a record low of 62.9 births per 1,000 women, the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics said. Overall, 3,957,577 babies were born last year in the nation, it said. The birth rate for teens — ages 15 to 19 — dropped 10 percent to 26.6 births per 1,000, an historic low. Population Reference Bureau demographer Carl Haub said the drop was likely attributable to educational efforts to prevent teen pregnancy and that economic factors also affected the rate, which began to fall dramatically during the recession that began in 2007.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not