UNITED STATES
Georgia executes woman
The state executed its first woman in 70 years early yesterday, despite an appeal for clemency by Pope Francis. Kelly Gissendaner, 47, made a statement and requested a prayer before she was put to death by lethal injection after a flurry of last-minute appeals. “At 12:21am, the court-ordered execution of Kelly Gissendaner was carried out in accordance with state law,” Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan said. Gissendaner was the first woman to be executed in the southern state since 1945, and the 16th nationwide since the Supreme Court re-established the death penalty in 1976. She was sentenced to death after being found guilty of conspiring to murder her husband in 1997. Her execution was initially scheduled for 7pm on Tuesday, but was delayed as her lawyers sought an 11th-hour reprieve in filings before a federal court of appeals, the Georgia Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court, to no avail. Dozens of supporters and death penalty opponents kept vigil outside the state prison in Jackson, Georgia, as Gissendaner awaited her fate. “If you wanted proof that the death penalty is torture, look no further than #KellyGissendaner waiting hours to see if she’ll live or die,” Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun and anti-death penalty advocate, wrote on Twitter.
CHINA
Democracy activists on trial
The nation has put two veteran democracy activists on trial for “subversion of state power,” one of their lawyers said yesterday, the latest prosecution in a sweeping crackdown on civil society. Chen Shuqing (陳樹慶) and Lu Gengsong (呂耿松) face maximum sentences of life in prison after their trial, which Chen’s attorney, Fu Yonggang (付永剛), said took place in Hangzhou on Tuesday. Both pleaded not guilty to the charges, which were based on their membership of the banned China Democracy Party, which calls for political reform, he added. “The prosecution had insufficient evidence showing they broke the law,” Fu said. Referring to the defendants, he said: “They just want to work to improve the lives of ordinary people and the state of the country.”
CHINA
Guo Boxiong’s brother fired
A younger brother of a disgraced former senior military officer, who has been accused of corruption, has been fired from his position as a senior provincial official, state media said yesterday. Guo Boquan (郭伯權) has been removed as head of the civil affairs department of Shaanxi Province, Xinhua news agency said, without providing any details. Chinese media reports have identified him as a younger brother of Guo Boxiong (郭伯雄), who was a vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission until he retired in 2012. Guo Boxiong was accused of bribery and abuse of power in July. Guo Boxiong’s son, major general Guo Zhenggang (郭正鋼), was put under his own graft investigation in early March.
CHINA
Banker faces prosecution
The former head of a local lender in the northern region of Inner Mongolia is to be prosecuted for suspected corruption, bribery and embezzlement, the state prosecutor said yesterday, the latest in a series of bankers to be targeted for graft. Former Bank of Inner Mongolia chairman Yang Chenglin (楊成林) is accused of defrauding the bank and seeking personal profits by embezzling large sums of money from the bank, the prosecutor said.
UNITED STATES
Kim Davis met pope
Kim Davis, the Kentucky country clerk who went to jail for defying a federal court’s orders to issue same-sex marriage licenses, met Pope Francis last week. Davis’ lawyer, Mat Staver, said Davis and her husband met privately with the pontiff on Thursday last week at the Vatican embassy in Washington for less than 15 minutes. He would not say who initiated the meeting. Reverend Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, yesterday said that he had no comment, but he did not deny the encounter took place. Davis was in Washington for the Values Voter Summit, a gathering of social conservatives where she received an award for defying the federal judge.
UNITED STATES
Snowden goes on Twitter
Former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistle-blower Edward Snowden opened a Twitter account with a joke on Tuesday. “Can you hear me now?” he wrote. Snowden’s first words on his verified account were borrowed from a television commercial for Verizon, in which an actor playing a technician tested the range of the firm’s wireless network. When Snowden in 2013 disclosed the scope of the NSA’s surveillance, the first revelation was a secret court order compelling Verizon to give the agency information on all telephone calls in its systems. Snowden racked up more than 160,000 followers in his first hour on Twitter, but several users noted that he was following only one account: the NSA’s.
SOUTH AFRICA
Violent crime rises
Rates of violent crime increased for a third year in a row, a worrying sign that violence has become a characteristic of the country, Minister of Police Nkosinathi Nhleko said on Tuesday. Official statistics show the murder rate has increased by 4.6 percent. “There are still high levels of violence and aggression in our society and this is a serious concern,” Nhleko told parliament. Poverty and inequality, and the prevalence of firearms contributed to this, he said. At least 17,805 people were murdered last year, a rate of 49 every day in a population of 54 million, according to the opposition Democratic Alliance. “This number of deaths is what one would expect from a country at war,” said Diane Kohler Barnard, a Democratic Alliance member.
TURKEY
Hostages in Iraq released
Sixteen workers who had been kidnapped in Iraq nearly a month ago were freed yesterday and are in good health, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said. The men were among 18 employees of Nurol Insaat construction firm kidnapped on Sept. 2 in the Sadr City, where they were working on a soccer stadium project. Two were released in Basra two weeks later. The release of the other 16 had been expected after a video posted online on Sunday from the kidnappers said their demands had been met. “Our 16 workers have just been received by our Baghdad ambassador. I talked to some of them on the phone,” Davutoglu wrote on Twitter.
SOUTH AFRICA
Thousands join marches
Thousands of people yesterday gathered in Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban for marches to protest corruption. More than 350 civic-rights groups, religious organizations and labor unions backed the demonstrations. Among the demands are that political party funding be made transparent, the auditor-general conduct regular lifestyle audits of senior public officials and public servants wear name tags when on duty.
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