UNITED STATES
‘El Loco’ gets 35 years
A Colombian described as one of history’s biggest cocaine dealers was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Monday by a Manhattan judge, who called the scope of his crimes “staggering.” Known as “El Loco,” Daniel Barrera Barrera, 48, was sentenced by Judge Gregory Woods, who rejected a defense lawyer’s request for leniency on the grounds that his client tried to cooperate, urged others to surrender and had rescued victims of kidnappings. The sentence included a US$10 million forfeiture and a US$10 million fine. “The scope of the offenses here is staggering,” Woods said as he imposed a sentence requested by the US government. “He is dangerous ... Too short a sentence would provide him the opportunity to commit additional crimes.” The judge said evidence demonstrated that Barrera, who once regularly carried an automatic weapon, used to threaten or kill individuals who owed his drug organization money or who posed a threat to his business. Prosecutors said he shipped cocaine from Colombia to the US as part of a massive drug-dealing operation that sent drugs to four continents and utilized a submersible vehicle to transport drugs.
GERMANY
Bomber made IS pledge
The Syrian who blew himself up wounding 15 people had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group on a video found on his smartphone, Bavarian Minister of the Interior Joachim Herrmann said on Monday. On searching the bomber’s room, Nuremberg police found diesel, hydrochloric acid, alcohol, batteries, paint thinner and pebbles — the same materials used in the bomb — and computer images and video clips linked to the militant group, they said. “A provisional translation by an interpreter shows that he expressly announces, in the name of Allah, and testifying his allegiance to [Islamic State leader] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ... an act of revenge against the Germans because they’re getting in the way of Islam,” Herrmann told a news conference. “I think that after this video there’s no doubt that the attack was a terrorist attack with an Islamist background.” The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombing, according to Amaq, a news agency that supports the group. Nuremberg Police Chief Roman Fertinger said the influence of the Islamic State could be seen on the bomber’s computer. “There was also a laptop that showed pictures and film sequences that glorify violence and are unequivocally linked to Islamic State,” Fertinger told a news conference. The attack on Sunday, outside a music festival in Ansbach, a town of 40,000 people southwest of Nuremberg that has a US Army base, was the fourth act of violence by men of Middle Eastern or Asian origin against German civilians in a week.
FRANCE
Priest killed in church attack
A priest was killed yesterday when men armed with knives seized hostages at a church near the northern city of Rouen, a police source said. Police said they killed two hostage-takers in the attack in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, 125km north of Paris. A priest was killed and another hostage was “between life and death,” the ministry of the interior said. The motivations for the hostage-taking were not clear, but the Paris prosecutor’s office said the case had been handed to anti-terrorism judges for investigation. The incident came as the nation remained on high alert nearly two weeks after Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel plowed a truck into a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing 84 people and injuring more than 300.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not