FRANCE
Militant’s relative charged
Investigators have handed preliminary terrorism charges to the brother-in-law of one of the extremists who attacked the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo last year. Mourad Hamyd, 20, was arrested on a French warrant in Bulgaria last month on suspicion he was trying to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group. He has denied the allegations. The Paris prosecutor’s office on Saturday said that he was given preliminary charges of association with terrorist criminals. Hamyd is the brother-in-law of Cherif Kouachi, one of two brothers who attacked Charlie Hebdo’s Paris office in January last year, killing 12 and shocking the nation. A high-school student at the time, Hamyd was briefly detained on suspicion of having a role in the attack, but classmates said he was in school.
MEXICO
Gangster’s nephew killed
A nephew of one of the leaders of the powerful Sinaloa cartel was murdered, the state prosecutors’ office said on Saturday, the latest attack on the group’s family members. Edgar Juvanny Parra Zambada, 42, the nephew of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, was shot dead alongside another victim on Friday, the prosecutors said. Parra, a seafood merchant, was killed by two unidentified assailants after a car chase in the streets of Culiacan, Sinaloa state. Earlier this month, one of the sons of Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman, the imprisoned Sinaloa cartel leader facing extradition to the US, was among a group of people abducted from a restaurant in the Mexican tourist resort of Puerto Vallarta.
UNITED STATES
Hit man’s execution stayed
A convicted hit man scheduled to be put to death on Wednesday for a murder-for-hire plot that left a woman dead more than 23 years ago has received a reprieve from a state appeals court — the second he has received within a week of an execution date. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday voted 5-2 to issue a stay of execution in the case of Rolando Ruiz. Presiding Judge Sharon Keller and Judge Michael Keasler dissented without comment. Judges Barbara Hervey and Kevin Yeary did not participate in the ruling. Ruiz, 44, had gotten within an hour of a lethal injection in 2007 when a federal appeals court intervened. Evidence showed Ruiz collected US$2,000 to kill Theresa Rodriguez of San Antonio in 1992 at the request of her husband, Michael, and a brother-in-law in a life insurance scheme.
UNITED STATES
Plane lands with one engine
A Southwest Airlines flight bound for Orlando, Florida, on Saturday morning made an emergency landing due to a major problem with one of its two engines. Flight 3472 from New Orleans diverted the airplane to Pensacola, Florida, after the pilot detected something had gone wrong with an engine, according to a Southwest statement. The jet, a Boeing 737-700, landed in Pensacola around 9:40am with no apparent injuries to the 99 passengers or five crew members on board, according to Southwest. Pictures taken from the plane and posted online made it appear that part of the engine had blown apart, but Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz said there was no explosion. He said Southwest will work with investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board to determine the cause. It is rare for Southwest or any other major airline to have such serious engine trouble, airline consulting firm Boyd International’s president Michael Boyd said. “It’s a one-off, almost unheard of,” Boyd said.
‘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