BRAZIL
Troops raid favelas
Thousands of army troops on Saturday raided Rio de Janeiro slums in a pre-dawn crackdown on crime gangs, leaving parts of the city looking like a war zone on the first anniversary of the opening of the Olympic Games. Five favelas were targeted by about 1,300 police and 3,600 troops in a sweep that started at 4am, the Rio state security service said in a statement. The main goal was to stop gangs behind a surge in brazen robberies of commercial trucks, with arrest warrants issued for 40 people. By late afternoon, 24 adults and two teens had been arrested and two killed “in confrontations,” Rio state security chief Robert Sa said.
RWANDA
Kagame wins a third term
President Paul Kagame won a third term in a landslide victory, extending his 17-year reign. He received 98.6 percent of the vote in provisional results from Friday’s election, the National Electoral Commission said on its Twitter account. Democratic Green Party of Rwanda candidate Frank Habineza had 0.47 percent, and independent Philippe Mpayimana won 0.73 percent. The US on Saturday said it was “disturbed by irregularities” in the election.
FRANCE
Cracked skull earns payout
A court has awarded a million-euro payout to a woman whose skull was cracked by an exploding whipped cream dispenser. The woman’s attorney, Emeline Petitgirard, said the sum was unusually large, but the case of Emilie Lada, who was 30 at the time, was particularly tragic — the “colossal” 1.09 million euro (US$1.2 million) sum is “for a life snatched away.” When the whipped cream cannister exploded in December 2013, it cracked Lada’s skull, prompted intracranial bleeding and tore off part of her face. “But the surgeons’ work was quite astonishing and the disfigurement is now barely visible,” Petitgirard said. However, Lada can no longer work and has lost her sense of taste and smell, she added.
GERMANY
Chinese saluters in trouble
Berlin police say two Chinese tourists were detained on Saturday for performing banned Nazi salutes in front of the Reichstag. Officers saw the two men, aged 36 and 49, taking photographs of each other making the gesture. The men were questioned at a nearby precinct, but later released after leaving a security deposit of 500 euros each.
ITALY
Man arrested for kidnapping
A 30-year-old man has been arrested in the alleged kidnapping of a young British model who thought she was coming to Milan for a photography shoot, but instead was drugged, hustled away in a suitcase and handcuffed in a house before being released, Milan police said on Saturday. Police identified the suspect as Lukasz Pawel Herba, a Polish citizen with British residency. He was jailed for investigation of suspected kidnapping for extortion purposes, police said. They suspect he advertised the “sale” of the woman online, while at the same time demanding ransom from the woman’s agent of US$300,000. Investigators are trying to determine if the suspect had accomplices.
CHINA
Xinjiang official sacked
The Chinese Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection on Saturday said the party leader for the Hotan area of Xinjiang has been sacked because he had taken gifts, including money, abused his power and had “abnormal sexual relations with others” and would face charges.
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