SPAIN
‘Pink Panther’ gang busted
Police on Friday said they had arrested five alleged members of the so-called “Pink Panther” gang of jewel thieves in Barcelona. A special operations unit from the Catalan police was waiting when the thieves, one armed with a pistol, tried to rob a jewelery store on the city’s famous Passeig de Gracia avenue, a police statement said. The operation was part of a larger investigation with different crime units in Spain and with the collaboration of the Serbian and German police, the statement said. Police were able to recover the jewelery the gang was trying to steal.
ARGENTINA
Rights leader warrant lifted
A judge lifted an arrest warrant on Friday for the 87-year-old president of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo human rights group in a highly politicized embezzlement case. The investigating magistrate had ordered Hebe de Bonafini’s arrest on Thursday, but hundreds of supporters massed outside the group’s offices to prevent police from removing her. The judge agreed on Friday to allow her to be questioned without being jailed. A date was not set. De Bonafini had twice refused to submit to questioning in a case involving the alleged diversion of nearly US$14 million in public funds earmarked for a low-incoming housing project registered under the Mothers’ name.
ENGLAND
Man charged in knife attack
A 19-year-old man on Friday was charged with the murder of a 64-year-old US woman in a knife attack that wounded five others in Central London on Wednesday, London Metropolitan Police said. The man, Zakaria Bulham, was also charged with five counts of attempted murder in relation to the individuals injured in the attack, police said. Bulham, a Norwegian man of Somalian origin, began attacking people on Wednesday evening in Russell Square, a park near the site of a 2005 suicide bombing. He was arrested on the same day. At the time, police said there was no evidence the attack was terrorism-related.
PANAMA
Stiglitz quits committee
Nobel Prize-winning US economist Joseph Stiglitz has resigned from a committee of international experts named to help reform Panama’s financial services sector after the Panama Papers scandal, the government said on Friday. Stiglitz and respected Swiss criminal law professor Mark Pieth quit the committee over “internal differences,” said a statement from the government, without giving further details. The Panama Papers scandal erupted in April, when media outlets around the world published details on dodgy offshore financial dealings gleaned from millions of leaked documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
KUWAIT
Filipina arrested for IS links
Authorities have arrested a Filipina accused of pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) and planning to launch an attack in the state, news agency KUNA reported on Friday. The woman, born in 1984, entered the country in June as a housekeeper and has been in contact with the Islamic State’s affiliate in Libya, the Ministry of the Interior said in a statement published by KUNA. Security forces monitored one of the e-mail accounts run by the woman and found messages in which she had contacted the Libyan militant group and had been using “a fake name and nickname to evade monitoring,” the ministry said.
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