SINGAPORE
Activist charged over rally
Authorities yesterday charged human rights activist Jolovan Wham for organizing public assemblies without a police permit, prompting rights groups to call on the government to guarantee the right to peaceful assembly. The 37-year-old former executive director of a group advocating the rights of foreign workers in Singapore could be fined up to S$10,000 (US$7,435) or imprisoned for up to six months, or both, if found guilty of repeat offenses. Wham was involved in a protest in June by several blindfolded activists who held up books on a subway train in a call for justice for 22 people detained in 1987 under a tough internal security law. He was also charged for vandalism and refusing to sign statements made during investigations, the Singapore Police Force said. He faces a total of seven charges stemming from public assemblies he organized from November last year, it said. Human Rights Watch urged the government to drop the case against “peaceful protester” Wham and to amend what it called a “draconian” law on public order to guarantee Singaporeans the right to peaceful assembly. A pre-trial conference for the case will take place on Dec. 13.
TURKEY
Hundreds more arrested
Prosecutors have issued detention warrants for 360 people in an operation targeting supporters of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen within the army, state-run Anadolu news agency reported yesterday. It said 333 of those facing arrest in the Istanbul-based operation were soldiers, 216 of them serving personnel. Ankara accuses Gulen and his network of orchestrating an attempted coup last year. Gulen denies the charge. Istanbul police officers were continuing operations to capture the suspects, it said. The private Dogan news agency said seven of those facing arrest were pilots.
UNITED STATES
Classified army data online
UpGuard, a California-based cybersecurity company, on Tuesday said that it found top secret files related to classified army communications systems sitting unprotected online for anyone to see. The data belonged to the US Army’s Intelligence and Security Command, a division of the army and the National Security Agency. The agency referred questions to the intelligence command, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. UpGuard analyst Chris Vickery discovered the unprotected data online on Sept. 28. Vickery notified the government about what he had found and was told on Oct. 10 that it had been secured. The data contained 47 files and folders that could be viewed, including three that could be downloaded. The exposed data included sensitive details concerning a battlefield intelligence platform, known as the Distributed Common Ground System-Army, as well as the platform’s troubled cloud auxiliary program codenamed “Red Disk.”
BOLIVIA
Morales cleared for 4th run
The nation’s highest court on Tuesday struck down limits on re-election in the constitution and election laws, paving the way for President Evo Morales to run for a fourth term in 2019. Morales’ Movement to Socialism (MAS) party in September asked the court to rescind legal limits barring elected authorities from seeking re-election indefinitely, saying they violate human rights. “All people that were limited by the law and the constitution are hereby able to run for office, because it is up to the Bolivian people to decide,” Macario Lahor Cortez, head of the Plurinational Constitutional Court, wrote in the ruling.
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
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
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the