UNITED STATES
Navy SEAL honored
President Barack Obama on Monday presented the nation’s highest military award to a Navy SEAL who helped rescue a US doctor during a deadly raid in Afghanistan in 2012. Senior Chief Petty Officer Edward Byers received the Medal of Honor for battlefield gallantry after he and his team rescued Dilip Joseph, who had been abducted with his driver and Afghan interpreter on Dec. 5, 2012. As Byers’ team entered the one-room building where Joseph was being held, one SEAL was fatally shot. Byers went in second and flung himself onto Joseph and used his own body to shield the doctor, while at the same time pinning another enemy against a wall until squad mates could tackle him.
ISRAEL
Troops rescue lost soldiers
Troops early yesterday raided a Palestinian refugee camp north of Jerusalem to rescue a pair of soldiers who had lost their way and came under attack in the area, the military said. The Palestinian Red Crescent said university student Eyad Sajadiyeh was shot in the head and died, while the Israeli military said five soldiers were wounded in the clashes. The two soldiers traveling in a jeep mistakenly entered the Qalandiya refugee camp while using the popular navigation app Waze, a military spokesman said. They were pelted with rocks and firebombs, military spokesman Brigadier General Motti Almoz said. The soldiers fled after their jeep caught fire, with one escaping to a nearby Jewish settlement and the other taking cover in the yard of a Palestinian family before he was rescued.
GERMANY
Court to hear NPD case
The nation’s highest court was yesterday to hear a landmark request to ban a neo-Nazi fringe party, more than a decade after a first attempt failed. The case before the Federal Constitutional Court is to argue that the far-right and anti-immigrant National Democratic Party (NPD) spells a threat to the nation’s democratic order. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government supports the case, although it has not formally joined the high-stakes legal gamble launched by the upper house of parliament. Critics charge the proceedings would give the NPD, a party with only about 5,200 members, a national stage and that a ban could turn its members into martyrs for their racist cause.
FRANCE
Corpse found at Airbnb
Authorities are investigating the death of a woman whose decomposing body was found in the garden of an Airbnb rental in suburban Paris. Evry Deputy Prosecutor Bertrand Daillie on Monday said that a group of young people who were renting the house for the weekend discovered the badly decomposed body in a sloping forest undergrowth in the unfenced property on Saturday afternoon. Daillie said the house belongs to a family of seven who left on vacation for a few days. The owners are expected to return today and be questioned by police.
UNITED KINGDOM
Gang leaders found guilty
Fourteen members of a criminal gang have been convicted of stealing millions of dollars’ worth of rhinoceros horn and Chinese artifacts from museums and auction houses. A jury at Birmingham Crown Court on Monday found four gang leaders guilty. Ten other men were convicted at previous trials. The thieves broke into collections, including the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the Durham University Oriental Museum in 2012, stealing jade items valued by police at between £17 million and £57 million (US$23.7 million and US$79.5 million). Many have never been recovered.
NEW ZEALAND
US Democrats vote
Members of US Democratic Party living in Wellington yesterday were the first in the world to cast ballots in multi-state primaries dubbed “Super Tuesday” — and in a bar. They voted just after midnight yesterday, almost a day ahead of compatriots back home, at the Public Bar and Eatery. Senator Bernie Sanders picked up 21 votes, while former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton got six. One ballot was spoiled. The results will be confirmed later this month at the global voter tally center in Germany. Wellington was the first of 111 cities in 41 countries to cast ballots in the primary for Democrats abroad. Republicans living overseas cannot do the same because the party does not have a similar mechanism.
IRAQ
Suicide bombings kill 48
At least 40 people were killed by a suicide bomber at a funeral in Diyala Province, while a suicide blast at a security checkpoint in Baghdad’s western outskirts killed eight members of the security forces, police said on Monday. The attack in Muqdadiya, 80km northeast of Baghdad, killed six commanders of the Hashid Shaabi umbrella group of Shiite militias who were attending the funeral of a commander’s relative, security officials said, adding that 58 people were wounded. The killing of the commanders is likely to inflame sectarian tensions in the province.
INDIA
Aspirants strip for test
The army made candidates at a recruitment day in Bihar take a written exam in their underwear to prevent them from cheating, the Indian Express said yesterday, after a spate of exam cheating scandals in the state. Photographs in the newspaper showed dozens of men sitting cross-legged in a field clad only in underpants, with many resting their test papers on their thighs, while a uniformed supervisor stood guard. An army source told the paper the radical step was taken “save time on frisking so many people” after more than 1,000 candidates turned up. The report comes a year after police in Bihar said they had arrested about 1,000 aspiring officers for paying people to sit their exams for them.
CHINA
Minister barred from pulpit
A leading pastor in Zhejiang Province on Monday was barred from the pulpit and removed as head of the provincial state-sanctioned Protestant church association. Joseph Gu Yuese (顧約瑟) was arrested last month on charges of embezzlement and other economic crimes. Supporters say the case against Gu was drummed up in retribution for his public opposition to a campaign by Zhejiang officials to tear down hundreds of rooftop crosses from churches. Notices posted yesterday on the Web sites of the official provincial Christian Association and Three-Self Patriotic Movement said the charges against Gu required his removal, despite his case not having gone to trial.
PHILIPPINES
Yacht body a mystery
Police yesterday said they are trying to determine the identity and cause of death of a sailor found dead at a table next to the radio of a yacht found adrift in the Pacific Ocean last week. Police Chief Inspector Dominador Plaza says the gray decomposing remains of the man resembled a mummy. The body was discovered by fishermen off the southeastern province of Surigao del Sur. Plaza said that documents found in the damaged yacht showed that it was apparently owned by a German identified as Manfred Fritz Bajorat.
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