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.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing