BOLIVIA
Prison raid triggers battle
Police raided notorious Palmasola prison early on Wednesday in a hunt for weapons and other contraband, touching off a gunbattle with prisoners who control the jail. Seven inmates died and 25 people, including six officers, were wounded, authorities said. About 2,300 police officers participated in the operation and were supported by helicopters. National police Colonel Faustino Mendoza said officers seized arms, equipment to distill alcohol, marijuana plants and other drugs from the section that houses the most dangerous inmates. “There was misrule in this prison,” he said.
BRAZIL
Politician assassinated
Leftist Rio de Janiero City Councilor Marielle Franco, who grew up in one of the city’s most violent slums and worked on human rights issues, was shot and killed on Wednesday, authorities said. The attack outraged politicians and the public, and protest rallies were called for yesterday. Franco’s driver also died in the attack, in which a car pulled up alongside her car as she returned from a black women’s empowerment event and shots were fired at them. One of her aides was wounded. The federal government said it is investigating the shooting. Amnesty International said the probe should be rigorous and focus on “the context, motive and responsibility” for the killing. Franco, 38, belonged to the PSOL party.
PANAMA
Mossack-Fonseca closing
Mossack-Fonseca, the law firm whose more than 11 million leaked documents known as the “Panama Papers” in 2016 shed light on how the world’s wealthy exploit financial secrecy to hide assets says it is closing at the end of this month. The data breach from the firm was published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shook the ranks of the rich and powerful. The firm said in a statement on Wednesday that at one time it had offices in 40 nations and about 600 employees. After the publication of so many secrets it has closed offices and pared its staff to about 50.
UNITED STATES
Navy pilots die in crash
The Navy on Wednesday said two of its aviators had been killed in an F/A-18F Super Hornet crash during a training flight off the coast of Key West, Florida. The Navy said in a statement the bodies of the pilot and weapons systems officer were recovered from the water after the two-seater jet crashed on its final approach to Naval Air Station Key West. The incident is under investigation, it said. The names of the aviators were withheld pending notifications of their families.
UNITED STATES
Shooter’s sister arrested
The sister of avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof, who was sentenced to die for the 2015 massacre at a historic South Carolina black church, was arrested on Wednesday for carrying weapons at a high school, media said. Morgan Roof, 18, was carrying a knife and pepper spray, as well as marijuana, at a school in Columbia, South Carolina, the Post and Courier and other media reported. The arrest came on the morning of a protest walkout by thousands of students nationwide to demand gun law reform. Morgan Roof also alarmed authorities with a racially charged Snapchat post against the walkout, saying in part: “I hope it’s a trap and y’all get shot,” the newspaper and other media said. She was held in custody late on Wednesday on a bond of US$5,000 and ordered not to return to the campus, media said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in