MEXICO
Protesters rush law office
Protesters on Monday stormed the prosecutor’s office of the southern state of Guerrero to protest the handling of the disappearance of 43 students, days before the case’s first anniversary. Students, parents of the young men and other protesters demonstrated at the building in the state capital, Chilpancingo, and placed pictures of the missing on the windows. A group of protesters entered the offices, breaking computers and surveillance cameras and causing damage to four vehicles. Vidulfo Rosales, an attorney for the relatives of the 43 missing students, said the protest was held to press the government to find the young men, “which is the movement’s main demand.”
GERMANY
Auschwitz worker to be tried
A 91-year-old woman who worked at Auschwitz has been accused of complicity in the murders of at least 260,000 Jews during World War II, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) said on Monday. The woman, who worked as a telegraph operator in Auschwitz, is to be tried in a court for minors, because she was under 21 at the time of alleged crimes, the agency said. A court in Kiel is to decide whether to proceed with a trial next year, taking both the charges against her and her health into consideration, DPA said, quoting the city’s chief prosecutor, Heinz Dollel.
CANADA
Celebrities fight wolf cull
Pop star Miley Cyrus and former Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson added their voice to opposition to a government plan to shoot wolves to reduce their population and save caribou herds in British Columbia. The provincial government said the killings are needed to save herds of caribou, whose numbers have plummeted to 1,500 and are now at risk of extinction. The province’s wolf population, which is estimated to top 8,500, is not endangered. Cyrus traveled to the Great Bear Rainforest over the weekend to meet a group of conservationists opposed to the cull. “When I first spoke out, I knew in my heart that the wolf cull was wrong, but after this visit, I know science is on my side,” Cyrus said.
ITALY
Samnite tomb unearthed
Archeologists have discovered a pre-Roman era tomb in perfect condition at Pompeii, the team at the archeological site buried in a 79 AD volcanic eruption announced on Monday. “Pompeii continues to be an inexhaustible source of scientific discoveries,” Massimo Osanna, superintendent at the ancient city site, said in a statement. The tomb at the Herculaneum Gate at Pompeii, unearthed by a team from the French Centre Jean Berard in Naples, dates back to the Samnite era. The Samnites were a group of tribes involved in fierce battles with the Romans in the fourth century BC.
UNITED STATES
Poynter unveils new network
Fact-checking has a new global network after the Poynter Institute for Media Studies on Monady announced plans for a new body to support efforts to root out false claims from the media. The project “will support and study the work of 64 fact-checking organizations spanning six continents,” Poynter said in a statement. Funded by grants from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Network and the US-based National Endowment for Democracy, the International Fact-Checking Network is to be based at Poynter’s headquarters in St Petersburg, Florida.
CHINA
Border stability urged
Minister of National Defense Chang Wanquan (常萬全) has urged Myanmar to maintain stability along their common border as the Burmese prepare for elections in November, the ministry said yesterday. Chang on Monday told Myanmar’s deputy commander-in-chief General Soe Win, who was visiting Beijing for talks, that their nations should “jointly maintain stability in the border area.” Ties soured this year over fighting between Myanmar’s military and the ethnic Chinese Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army along part of the shared border.
NIGERIA
Bombing wave kills 80
At least 80 people were killed and about 150 injured in multiple bomb attacks in northeastern Borno state on Sunday evening, police and witnesses said on Monday. Three bomb blasts in the state capital, Maiduguri, about 7:30pm left at least 54 people dead and 90 injured. About two hours later, two bombs exploded at a checkpoint about 135km away at a market in Monguno. Locals residents and a hospital source said that attack killed 27 people and injured 62. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
SOUTH AFRICA
Freezer find leads to court
A Danish national on Monday appeared in a court in Bloemfontein on sexual assault charges after 21 pieces of female genitalia were found stuffed in his freezer, police said. The 58-year-old gunshop owner was arrested last week. Anesthetic drugs and surgical equipment were also found in his house. He “allegedly sedated his victims before performing illegal operations on them,” police said in a statement. Police suspect most of his victims were from the neighboring kingdom of Lesotho. Some media reports suggest he had in the past admitted to a journalist that he performed female genital mutilation. Police said the man is wanted in Denmark for illegally dealing in firearms.
INDIA
Road workers bury drunk
Police yesterday said road construction workers killed a man when they accidentally buried him in a pit while repairing a road in Madhya Pradesh state. Constable Dhruvsingh Thakur said that a road crew working in the evening failed to notice that a drunken man had fallen into a crater on the side of the road. They dumped gravel and an asphalt mixture into the pit, burying the man, before using a large roller to smooth the road. Villagers noticed part of the man’s hand in the road and police on Monday dug out his body. The workers have been charged with homicide.
MALAYSIA
Opposition alliance formed
Three opposition parties have formed a new alliance after the collapse of a former coalition in June following months of internal bickering. The leaders of the People’s Justice Party, the Democratic Action Party and the newly created Parti Amanah Negara held discussions and negotiations to form Pakatan Harapan, they said at a news conference yesterday.
NEPAL
Curfews being eased
The Home Ministry yesterday said that protests against the nation’s new constitution are abating, just hours after police opened fire on a crowd and injured three in the east of the country. The ministry said that curfews imposed amid weeks of violent demonstrations that left more than 40 dead are now being relaxed in some areas. The new constitution was adopted on Sunday after a 10-year effort.
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