UNITED STATES
Wife takes off in patrol car
An Alaska woman accused of stealing a police car with her husband handcuffed in the back seat faces several charges including theft and hindering prosecution, Alaska State Troopers said on Friday. The woman slipped into a patrol car and drove off on Wednesday while a trooper was engaged with a passing motorist on an unrelated topic, a trooper dispatch report said. Authorities found the car not far from where it was stolen in Big Lake, a tiny lakeside community of 3,500 people 104km northwest of Anchorage. The following day troopers arrested Amber Watford, 28, and Joshua Watford 38, in a home about 72km north of Anchorage in Wasilla, the report said. Joshua Watford had been first arrested in Big Lake on Wednesday for failure to appear at court-ordered, alcohol-related classes from a previous driving under the influence charge, state trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said. It was not long after his arrest that Watford’s wife made off with the patrol car and the couple remained at-large for about 30 hours, the trooper report said.
CHILE
Boy found drinking dog milk
Police said they have rescued a malnourished two-year-old boy found being breastfed by a neighbor’s dog. The national police said a witness spotted the dog feeding the boy on Thursday at a mechanic’s workshop in the desert port of Arica, about 2,000km north of the capital, Santiago. Captain Diego Gajardo told reporters that the child was released from a hospital on Friday and is under the care of child welfare authorities. Gajardo alleged the mother was drunk when she appeared at the hospital, but said she has not been arrested because there was no evidence of physical abuse. A family court hearing on Sept. 22 is to determine who cares for the child.
BOLIVIA
Aboriginal leader arrested
Authorities working on a corruption case have arrested a top Aboriginal leader who has been critical of President Evo Morales’ push to drill for oil and develop mining on traditional native lands in the eastern lowlands. Adolfo Chavez said he is innocent and the object of political persecution. The former head of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Eastern Bolivia was arrested on Thursday night in Santa Cruz. Prosecutors accuse him of embezzling US$130,000 in state funds. The ethnic Tacana was an ally of Morales until the president decided to build a highway through a pristine lowlands indigenous reserve.
ECUADOR
Ex-cop jailed over murders
A former police officer has been jailed for 16 years for his role in extrajudicial police killings that left eight dead and four missing, the attorney general told reporters. The National Court of Justice sentenced Mario Cevallos over the execution-style killings during a police response to a hold-up at a pharmacy in Guayaquil in November 2003, attorney general Galo Chiriboga said. He said a total of 13 former police have been convicted for their roles in the incident, which has been classified a violation of human rights. Members of an elite police force, the officers’ intervention left eight dead — an employee of the pharmacy, a customer and six presumed suspects — and four missing. After an internal investigation, the police exonerated the officers, saying there had been a confrontation with the suspects, but no evidence to support that story was presented to the court. “This is a trial in which the victims have demanded justice for 12 years and today they got it,” Chiriboga said.
UKRAINE
Svoboda members charged
Authorities on Friday charged two senior members of an ultra-nationalist party over violent clashes in Kiev that killed three police officers this week. Former minister of agriculture Ihor Shvaika and former lawmaker Yuriy Syrotyuk were charged with “participating in mass disorder,” a Ministry of Internal Affairs spokesman told reporters. The two men are senior representatives of the far-right anti-Russian Svoboda party, whose activists are also battling Moscow-backed rebels in the country’s east. If convicted, the two face up to 15 years in prison. Three police officers died and more than 140 people were wounded after violent clashes broke out outside the Supreme Council between nationalists and police on Monday. In total, 16 people were arrested in connection with the clashes, including a member of Svoboda’s paramilitary wing suspected of throwing a live grenade. He faces up to life in prison.
CZECH REPUBLIC
Russia spying on reactors
The Czech Republic’s counterintelligence agency said the number of Russian spies remains high and they are particularly interested in the country’s nuclear program. “Russia does not consider a fight over the Czech nuclear energy sector a lost battle,” the Security Information Service (BIS) said in its annual report published on Friday. The BIS said the Russian spies have focused on a recently approved government plan to build at least one more reactor at the Temelin nuclear power plant and another at the Dukovany plant. They have also targeted anyone whose task is to make this plan reality, it said. The Kremlin is also trying to take control of the Russian community’s organizations in the country, the BIS charged, and is building a spy network in Europe.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in