UNITED STATES
White supremacist convicted
A man who admitted in court to wanting to kill Jews was found guilty on Monday of murdering three people, including a teenage boy, outside two Jewish centers in Kansas last year. A seven-man, five-woman jury took less than two hours to convict Frazier Glenn Cross, 74, on the three murders, as well as three counts of attempted murder for firing at other people during the same shooting spree in April last year. None of the three victims were Jewish. Jurors were to start deciding yesterday if Cross should get the death penalty, as prosecutors are seeking. Cross, who acted as his own attorney at trial, admitted the killings on the witness stand and said he was motivated to kill Jews because he believes they have too much power and are destroying the white gentile race.
JAPAN
Explosions damage plant
Explosions and fire yesterday hit an aluminum plating factory, a fire official said. Multiple explosions were heard at the plant in Kitakyushu operated by Shinkou Alumer Inc, a local fire spokesman said. “Our initial investigation indicates the possibility that water somehow got into a furnace in the process of melting aluminum and caused vapor explosions,” he said. Six employees working at the time escaped from the factory and no one was injured, he said. The explosions and the fire, which were first reported at 6:24am, seriously damaged the plant. The fire was under control and was nearly extinguished by mid-morning, the spokesman added. The fire comes after a huge blaze broke out last week at a steel pipe plant near Tokyo’s Haneda airport. There were no injuries.
INDIA
One dies in Manipur riot
Rioters went on a rampage in the northeast state of Manipur overnight, setting fire to the homes of seven lawmakers to protest new legislation defining who can claim to be from the state, police said yesterday. One person died while trapped in a burning house on Monday night, and two died when police fired to disperse the arsonists. Police imposed a curfew and deployed paramilitary forces after the violence erupted in C’hurachandpur town 70km southwest of the state capital of Imphal. Lawmaker N. Biren Singh said the law demanding people provide some proof that their families lived in Manipur before 1951 is aimed at keeping “outsiders,” including migrants, from settling in the state, located between Bangladesh and Myanmar. “Those who are protesting may be harboring fears the authorities might now start looking at relevant documents to see if anyone has settled down in the state after 1951,” Singh said. However, protesters said that setting such a limit excludes many who arrived legitimately after that date or who do not have proper documents.
SOMALIA
Fifty peacekeepers killed
Al-Shabaab militants attacked an African Union (AU) base in the south yesterday, the group and residents said, with unconfirmed reports that dozens of AU soldiers were killed. The al-Qaeda-aligned militants said one of their fighters rammed a car bomb into the base and then gunmen poured inside the facility run by the AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia. Al-Shabaab said 50 peacekeepers were killed in the attack on Janale base, about 90km south of Mogadishu. In the past, the group has exaggerated the number of troops it has killed and officials have played down losses. Captain Bilow Idow, a Somali military officer based in a town near Janale, said the base was cut off as the militants had destroyed a nearby bridge.
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
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
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