NORTHERN CYPRUS
Snap election held
Turkish Cypriots yesterday voted in a snap parliamentary election overshadowed by last year’s failure to reach a peace deal for the divided island in UN-backed talks. More than 190,500 people are registered to vote in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, established in the wake of Turkey’s 1974 invasion of the island in response to an Athens-backed coup. The vote comes ahead of presidential polls later this month in the internationally recognized Greek-majority Republic of Cyprus, with peace efforts on hold until both sets of elections are over.
RUSSIA
Three vandals arrested
Three members of a militant group were arrested on Saturday after hurling liquid at exhibits in a Moscow show by controversial US photographer Jock Sturges. It was the second time the exhibition has been vandalized since September last year, when a protester threw urine at some of the pictures, forcing the show’s closure, after a government adviser condemned the images as “child pornography.” The exhibition, at the established Lumiere Brothers Gallery close to the Kremlin, is the first to show Sturges’ work in the country and is titled Jock Sturges: Absence of Shame. Sturges is a well-known photographer whose nude images of children have regularly prompted accusations of pedophilia, which he denies.
UNITED STATES
Astronaut John Young dies
Legendary astronaut John Young, who walked on the moon and later commanded the first space shuttle flight, has died, NASA said on Saturday. Young was 87. Young died on Friday night at home in Houston, Texas, following complications from pneumonia, the space agency said. It called Young one of its pioneers — the only NASA astronaut to go into space as part of the Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programs, and the first to fly into space six times. He was the ninth man to walk on the moon. “Astronaut John Young’s storied career spanned three generations of spaceflight,” Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot said in an e-mailed statement.
HONDURAS
Thousands protest election
Thousands of demonstrators led by opposition leader Salvador Nasralla on Saturday gathered in the country’s second-largest city to protest the re-election of President Juan Orlando Hernandez in a vote they say was fraudulent. “We will not stop until Hernandez says he’s leaving,” Nasralla told supporters, many of whom chanted “JOH out,” referring to Hernandez. It was the first such march in San Pedro Sula since the Nov. 26 election, and the losing candidate once again appealed to the Organization of American States and the countries that have recognized Hernandez’s victory to listen to the protesters as they oppose an “illegal government.”
UNITED KINGDOM
May ditches fox hunt plan
Prime Minister Theresa May has confirmed that she has ditched plans that would have allowed the end of the ban on fox hunting, in the latest attempt to repair the Conservatives’ reputation on animal rights. In a U-turn that would anger some party members and supporters in its rural heartlands, she revealed that she was dropping plans in the Tory election manifesto to hold a parliamentary vote on reversing the ban. The prime minister voted against the ban when it was introduced under former prime minister Tony Blair and New Labour.
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
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