MEXICO
Gang mutilates six people
Five men and a woman on Monday were found alive on a road with their hands amputated and their foreheads marked with the words: “I’m a thief.” The victims were mutilated by a criminal group linked to drug trafficking, which also left a dead man on the road and two bags with the severed hands in Tlaquepaque, near Guadalajara, the nation’s second-biggest city, police said. “They’re in a delicate state of health,” local police commander Roberto Larios told reporters. “Their stumps were wrapped in plastic.” Drug cartels often leave the dismembered bodies of victims on roadsides, making the discovery of six mutilated people alive all the more unusual. The dead man, 39, was apparently beaten to death and his hands were not cut off. He was married to the woman, who is 44. The other men are aged between 25 and 43. Authorities suspect that the gruesome crime is linked to drug dealing. Two of the victims have rap sheets. Witnesses said the victims were driven to the site in two vehicles and abandoned there with a note that said: “This happened to us for being thieves.” The message, signed “anti-thief elite group,” also threatens thieves and those who abuse women or children.
PANAMA
Noriega given hospital leave
A court has ordered that imprisoned former president Manuel Noriega be allowed to prepare for and recuperate from a surgery at a public hospital rather than prison. In a statement on Monday, the judiciary said the decision was based on a report from the country’s medical institute. The 82-year-old former strongman needs to have a benign brain tumor removed. He was scheduled to have the procedure in July, but apparently backed out, because he feared contracting an infection. Noriega’s lawyer, Ezra Angel, said that the court’s order, which he had not yet received formally, was in response to his petition that Noriega be allowed to recuperate at home.
UNITED STATES
Former judge accused
Federal prosecutors said a former Arkansas judge accused of giving lighter sentences to defendants in exchange for nude photographs and sexual acts tried to bribe witnesses and had an accomplice threaten to make one of them “disappear.” Joseph Boeckmann on Monday appeared disheveled as the accusations were levied during his arraignment hearing in District Court in Little Rock. The 70-year-old Boeckmann pleaded not guilty to bribery, fraud and other federal charges just hours after prosecutors unsealed a 21-count indictment.
VENEZUELA
Opposition faces new hurdle
The government-stacked courts have dealt another blow to the opposition’s attempts to unseat President Nicolas Maduro. In a decision on Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that opponents must collect signatures from 20 percent of registered voters in each of the country’s 24 states to force a recall referendum. The opposition had argued it needed to garner only 20 percent nationally to trigger the vote. The ruling will make it harder for opponents to mobilize support, especially in rural states dominated by the government, when it attempts next week to collect and electronically verify 4 million signatures over three days allotted for the petition drive. Polls show the public overwhelmingly wants to cut short Maduro’s term. However, the embattled socialist still has control over key institutions, including courts and the electoral council.
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