TURKEY
Fake lifejacket factory found
Police have uncovered a factory producing fake lifejackets, shining a light on a booming cottage industry that has emerged as a byproduct of the refugee crisis. Police allegedly seized 1,263 lifejackets filled with non-buoyant materials from an illegal workshop in Izmir that employed two Syrian children, according to Agence France-Presse and Dogan news agencies. The raid came in the same week that the bodies of more than 30 people washed up on local beaches, having drowned in their attempt to reach Greece. Some of the dead were pictured wearing lifejackets, leading to suspicions that they may have been fake.
GUATEMALA
War crimes arrests made
Security forces on Wednesday arrested 17 retired military personnel accused of massacres and other human rights abuses during the nation’s 1960-1996 civil war, prosecutors said. Of the suspects, 13 are accused of involvement in at least 88 massacres of indigenous people between 1981 and 1986, top prosecutor Thelma Aldana told a news conference. Four others are accused of the disappearance of a boy, Marco Antonio Molina Theissen, near the capital, Guatemala City, in October 1981. They were arrested in raids in the north and center of the country.
FRANCE
Comics fest to honor women
Organizers of the Angouleme comics festival promised on Wednesday to add women to their list of nominees for a lifetime achievement award after facing a barrage of criticism over their earlier all-male selection. The festival, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to Angouleme, is one of the world’s biggest comics events. The lack of women among the 30 nominees for the prestigious prize prompted female authors to call for a boycott and generated a social media effort to highlight the work of women comics creators. Several nominees had asked in an act of solidarity that their names be pulled from the list of nominees.
UNITED STATES
Marquez pleads not guilty
Enrique Marquez, the man accused of purchasing the two assault rifles used in the San Bernardino shooting that left 14 people dead, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to terror-related charges. Marquez, 24, was indicted last week by a federal grand jury in California of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, lying about the purchase of the two weapons used in the Dec. 2 shooting, marriage fraud and lying on the visa application for the woman he married. According to the charges against him, Marquez in November 2011 bought a Smith & Wesson assault rifle, and three months later, purchased another rifle. Both weapons were allegedly purchased on behalf of Sayed Farook.
ITALY
Jail surrogates: minister
Surrogate parents should be treated as sex offenders and sent to prison, Minister of the Interior Angelino Alfano said on Wednesday, escalating his opposition to plans to give gay and unmarried heterosexual couples legal recognition. Alfano, whose small New Centre-Right party (NCD) opposes any form of surrogacy, is particularly incensed by a proposal to let gay partners adopt their stepchildren, saying this subverts traditional family values. “Stepchild [adoption] really risks bringing the country closer to wombs-for-rent, toward the most vile, illegal trade that man has invented,” Alfano told the Avvenire newspaper, the country’s mainstream Roman Catholic newspaper.
LIBYA
Truck bomb kills dozens
At least 40 people were killed yesterday when a truck bomb hit a police training center in the town of Zliten, the town’s mayor, Miftah Lahmadi, said. He said the truck exploded as hundreds of recruits were gathering at the center. There are conflicting accounts of the numbers killed or injured, with some one report saying as many as 150 people were hurt. Meanwhile, three days of attacks by the Islamic State group on the nation’s biggest oil terminals have started fires that have spread to five massive oil storage tanks, Petroleum Facilities Guards spokesman Ali al-Hassi said on Wednesday. Hassi said guards had recovered bodies of 30 Islamic State fighters, and had captured two military tanks and other vehicles from the militants. Firefighters were trying to control four fires at Es Sider and one at Ras Lanuf. Two were triggered by Islamic State shelling, and three more had caught fire, Hassi said.
EGYPT
Gunmen fire on tourist bus
Gunmen on a motorcycle yesterday opened fire on tourists, including at least two Israelis, as they boarded a bus in Cairo, but there were no casualties, security sources said. The attack took place at a hotel on a road leading to the pyramids. One gunman was arrested at the scene and security forces surrounded the other attacker in another part of Cairo, the sources said. The attack came as Coptic Orthodox Christians in the nation yesterday celebrated Christmas amid tight security. Police on Wednesday night searched more than 300 churches in Cairo alone for explosive devices. Roadblocks were set up before churches nationwide and cars and motorcycles were temporarily banned from idling in front of them.
YEMEN
New front opens in war
Saudi-backed local forces landed by sea at the Red Sea port of Maydee near the border with Saudi Arabia late on Wednesday, residents said, opening up a new front in a nine-month-old civil war. The region is a stronghold of the Iranian-allied Houthi group, which has seized large parts of the nation from forces loyal to President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The president’s forces attempted to push from Maydee’s port, pounded for weeks by air strikes and naval shelling, into the surrounding city, but ran into heavy Houthi resistance and landmines, residents said by telephone.
ZIMBABWE
Fingerprinting for reporters
Journalists are going to have to take fingerprints and get police clearance to report from parliament, Parliamentary Speaker Jacob Mudenda said. However, a national journalists’ union said it is unfair to single out the media when the lawmakers themselves are not subjected to the same screening before entering the parliament buildings. The rule may be challenged in court, The rule may be challenged in court, Zimbabwe Union of Journalists secretary-general Forster Dongozi said on Wednesday.
NIGERIA
Boko Haram blamed
Boko Haram gunmen have mounted their first attacks since the government declared the militant Muslim group “technically” defeated, killing seven people in a raid and suicide bombing, residents said on Wednesday. The attacks happened on Tuesday in the northeastern state of Borno, near the group’s Sambisa Forest hideout, where the army is looking to flush out remnants of the rebel group.
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
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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