UNITED STATES
Student to return to Cairo
An Egyptian student in California has agreed to return to Cairo after he wrote a threatening comment on Facebook about Donald Trump that drew the attention of the Secret Service and led to the cancelation of his student visa, law enforcement officials and his lawyer said. The student, Emadeldin Elsayed, 23, posted an article on Facebook last month about Trump’s proposal to bar Muslims from entering the US. “I literally don’t mind taking a lifetime sentence in jail for killing this guy, I would actually be doing the whole world a favor,” Elsayed wrote, according to his lawyer, Hani Bushra. After the Secret Service investigated his comments, Elsayed was expelled from flight school, which made him ineligible to continue studying on a visa, even though prosecutors decided not to charge him. Rights advocates say they are alarmed by his case and see it as another sign of the government using the immigration system as a punitive tool against people, particularly Muslims, who are perceived as threats.
TUNISIA
Militant assault repelled
The security forces repelled a militant assault on Monday on a town near the Libyan border, killing 36 assailants in what authorities said was a thwarted effort to establish an Islamic emirate. Eleven members of the security forces and seven civilians were also killed in Ben Guerdane in what President Beji Caid Essebsi condemned as an “unprecedented” jihadist attack. It prompted authorities to close the frontier and order a nighttime curfew. Prime Minister Habib Essid, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group, said the operation’s aim had been to create a “Daesh emirate” in Ben Guerdane, but the army and internal security forces had thwarted the attackers. Essebsi, in an earlier statement broadcast on state television, said the assault was “maybe aimed at controlling” the border region with Libya and vowed to “exterminate these rats.”
SYRIA
Airstrike kills at least 19
An airstrike was reported to have killed at least 19 people and possibly many more at a market in the northwest on Monday, straining a cessation of hostilities agreement meant to pave the way for peace talks. In a further upsurge in violence, the Nusra Front and other Islamist insurgents not included in the US-Russian agreement attacked government forces in a neighboring province, taking over a village and at least two hilltops in their first advance for some time in the area, a monitoring group said. The agreement, accepted by President Bashar al-Assad’s government and most of his enemies, has reduced violence in Syria since it took effect on Feb. 27, the first truce of its kind in a five-year-old war that has killed more than 250,000 people and caused the world’s worst refugee crisis.
SPAIN
Teacher confesses to abuse
A third teacher at a school run by a Roman Catholic order in Barcelona has confessed to having sexually abused students in a video released on Monday, deepening one of the nation’s biggest pedophile scandals. The man, who is in his 70s and was identified only by his initials A.F., can be heard in the video recorded with a hidden camera apologizing to one of the victims he abused in the 1980s. “I don’t know why I did it... it was like a child’s game,” he says in the video posted on the Web site of daily newspaper El Periodico de Catalunya. The victim said he was sexually abused by the former teacher dozens of times when he was eight to 14 years old.
CHINA
Beijing eyes more bases
The government yesterday hinted that it was planning more global bases following the establishment of its first overseas logistics center in Djibouti, which the Horn of Africa country’s government calls a military facility. Beijing plans to use it to support its anti-piracy operations in the waters off the strife-torn nations of Somalia and Yemen. Officials have been keen not to call it a military base, but state media increasingly uses this language to refer to it. The Ministry of National Defense last month said building had begun on the base, with authorities describing it as naval “support facilities” in Djibouti, which has fewer than 1 million people, but is striving to become an international shipping hub.
AUSTRALIA
AC/DC singer halts tour
Rock elders AC/DC on Monday postponed remaining dates on their US tour after singer Brian Johnson was warned he risked total deafness. The 68-year-old Johnson “has been advised by doctors to stop touring immediately or risk total hearing loss,” the band said in a statement. AC/DC, famous for playing at painfully high decibels, said it would play the 10 remaining US shows at later dates, but “likely with a guest vocalist.” Johnson, known for his trademark cap and a voice that strains the vocal cords, joined the band in 1980 after singer Bon Scott died following a night of heavy drinking. Johnson’s hearing problems are just the latest of the band’s woes. AC/DC’s latest album Rock or Bust, released in 2014 after a six-year gap, is the first without founding member and rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young, who has retired due to dementia. The band has also parted ways with drummer Phil Rudd, who was convicted in New Zealand of threatening to kill an employee.
BANGLADESH
Death sentence upheld
The nation’s highest court yesterday upheld a death sentence for a senior member of the country’s largest Islamist party who was convicted of committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 independence war against Pakistan. The decision is expected to aggravate the divide between moderates and extremists in the country, which has seen a wave of deadly assaults in the past year targeting members of the Shiite community, foreigners and secular writers. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the war crimes trials, carried out by special tribunals, represent a long-overdue effort to obtain justice more than four decades after Bangladesh split from Pakistan. A five-judge Supreme Court panel led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha yesterday upheld the 2014 conviction and sentence for Mir Quasem Ali on eight war crimes charges, including the abduction and murder of a young man in a torture cell.
INDIA
Teen raped, set alight: police
Police said a 15-year-old girl is fighting for her life in a New Delhi hospital after being raped and set on fire on the rooftop terrace of her family’s home in a village outside the city. Police constable Yadram Singh yesterday said that a 20-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly raping and attempting to burn the girl to death in Tigri village, near the New Delhi suburb of Noida. His report on the case describes how the girl’s parents found her with severe burns, after hearing her screaming from the rooftop terrace before dawn on Monday. The incident is just one of several recently reported cases of rape against women or children.
‘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