UNITED KINGDOM
Online abuse to be punished
Online abuse will be treated as seriously as offline offenses, the Crown Prosecution Service said yesterday in new guidance on handling hate crimes. The rules — which included guidelines on helping disabled and bisexual victims — were meant to encourage more people to come forward and press courts to impose longer sentences, it said. “This is a crime that’s under-reported. Sometimes people feel that they just have to put up with it... That’s absolutely not the case,” Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, told the BBC. The new advice was in response to the growth of social media, the service said.
GERMANY
Merkel warns Turkey
Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday warned Turkey not to “misuse” Interpol to pursue its critics after a Spanish court ordered the conditional release of a Turkish-German writer wanted by Ankara. Dogan Akhanli, who writes about Turkey’s human rights record, was on Saturday arrested while on holiday in Granada, Spain, on an Interpol red notice, similar to an international arrest warrant, from Ankara. “That’s not on,” said Merkel about the latest case of a German citizen being pursued by Turkish President Recep Erdogan’s government, adding that countries “must not misuse international organizations such as Interpol.”
IRAN
New Cabinet approved
President Hassan Rouhani won lawmakers’ approval for all but one of his new Cabinet, in an overwhelming show of support for an agenda criticized by some conservatives. Parliament on Sunday voted to reappoint Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and Minister of Foreign Affiars Mohammad Javad Zarif, top Rouhani allies during his first term, as well as 14 other ministers. The only candidate to lose a vote of confidence was Ministry of Energy nominee Habibollah Bitaraf. “We need to move forward. This is not the time to have proponents and opponents. We all need to help and act,” Rouhani said.
CANADA
Rival groups clash
Clashes erupted on Sunday between police and dozens of anti-racist campaigners on the sidelines of a pro-immigration rally in Quebec City, while a demonstration organized by extreme-right protesters gained little traction. A few hundred people gathered in Quebec City’s center early afternoon to counter-protest a planned far-right rally, supporters of which spent much of the day stuck in a parking lot. In a bid to keep the two rallies apart, police erected a security cordon, but declared the anti-racist demonstration illegal after sporadic clashes broke out and hooded individuals threw projectiles at police.
CROATIA
Dogs tuck into special treats
Specially brewed beer made of chicken and vegetables, and ice cream made from bananas, peanuts, yogurt and soy milk are top items on the menu in the nation’s only beach bar for dogs. To spice up lazy beach days, the Monty’s Dog Beach Bar organized a competition on Sunday evening in which dogs and their owners competed as teams. Fifteen owners and their dogs took part in the competition, running down the pier and then jumping into the water and swimming 100m or so to the shore. The fastest four-legged athlete of the day won a 7kg bag of dog food and a weekend at a local hotel.
SOUTH KOREA
Annual war drills begin
US and local troops yesterday began their annual war games. The Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills are largely computer-simulated war games held every summer, and always draw a furious response from Pyongyang, which views them as an invasion rehearsal. This year’s 11-day training program involves 17,500 US troops and 50,000 local soldiers, according to the US military command in the nation and Seoul’s Ministry of National Defense.
NORTH KOREA
Last US defector dies
The sons of a former US soldier who defected to Pyongyang more than five decades ago have announced that their father died last year pledging his loyalty to the “great leader Kim Jong-un.” James Joseph Dresnok was among a handful of US servicemen to desert following the Korean War, crossing the fortified Demilitarized Zone in 1962. He went on to appear in propaganda films and was believed to be the last US defector in the country. In a video interview posted on the state-run Uriminzokkiri Web site on Friday, Ted and James Dresnok, dressed in Korean People’s Army uniforms, confirmed that their father suffered a fatal stroke in November last year. “Our father was in the arms of the republic and received only the love and care of the party until his passing at age 74,” said Ted Dresnok, who also goes by the name Hong Soon-chol.
BANGLADESH
Ten sentenced to death
A court has sentenced to death 10 leaders and activists from a banned militant Muslim group for a plot in 2000 to kill Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina by planting bombs at one of her rallies. Judge Mamtaz Begum sentenced the suspects on Sunday in Dhaka and ordered them to be shot to death. Prosecutors said two bombs were found a day before Hasina was scheduled to address a rally at a college campus in Kotalipara. Those convicted belong to the Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami group. Defense attorneys said they would appeal the verdict.
THAILAND
Death sentences appealed
Two Burmese men convicted of killing two British backpackers on Koh Tao in 2014 yesterday submitted their final appeal against the death sentence. They were convicted in December 2015 of the murders of Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24. Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Htun lost an appeal in March to have their sentence overturned.
NEW ZEALAND
New poll blow for PM
Three weeks ago the conservative National Party appeared to be cruising to a fourth straight election victory in next month’s general election. However, yesterday the National Party and Prime Minister Bill English’s government suffered a blow when United Future leader Peter Dunne resigned, the third party leader to quit in as many weeks. The party supports the government, but Dunne was its only lawmaker, although he also served as minister of interior. English said Dunne’s exit highlighted that the election was becoming a drag race between the two main parties, with the minor parties falling away.
PHILIPPINES
Kidnapped sailor rescued
A Vietnamese sailor kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf has been rescued after nine months in captivity, the military said yesterday. Troops rescued the hostage on Sunday on Basilan Island, authorities said. Another Vietnamese remains a hostage.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing