SUDAN
Opposition leader jailed
An emergency court on Sunday sentenced opposition leader Mariam al-Mahdi to a week in jail, while police detained several people intent on marching on parliament to protest a state of emergency. Al-Mahdi said she will spend a total of three weeks in jail after refusing to pay a fine of 2,000 Sudanese pounds (US$42). Deputy chief of the opposition Umma Party, led by her father and former prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, she and her sister Rabah were among those arrested earlier on Sunday. Protest organizers had called for a march to challenge the state of emergency, imposed nationwide by President Omar al-Bashir on Feb. 22. “As some of our leaders came out of the party office to lead the march, security agents arrested them,” said Mohamed al-Mahdi, a party leader who is not related to the former prime minister’s family. Riot police fired tear gas at those who had gathered outside the party offices, witnesses said, prompting the crowd to disperse before the march could begin.
MALAWI
Floods kill 30 people
Floods in the nation’s south have killed 30 people and left more than 230,000 people without shelter, Homeland Security Minister Nicholas Dausi said on Sunday. Dausi visited people affected by the deluges in two of the 14 southern districts affected. He said his ministry — which is also responsible for disaster management affairs — had received reports of 30 deaths and about 238,000 villagers losing their homes since the start of the incessant downpours last week. “Their immediate needs are food, tents, blankets and chlorine to treat drinking water and anti-malaria medication,” he said.
UNITED STATES
Gentile sentence nears end
A reputed Connecticut mobster who authorities believe is the last surviving person of interest in the largest art heist in history is nearing the end of a four-year prison sentence in an unrelated weapons case. Eighty-two-year-old Robert Gentile is scheduled to be released from the Fort Dix federal prison in New Jersey on Sunday. Federal prosecutors have said they believe Gentile has information about the still-unsolved 1990 heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Thieves stole an estimated US$500 million worth of art, including works by Rembrandt and Johannes Vermeer. Gentile has denied knowing anything about it. He pleaded guilty in the weapons case stemming from federal agents’ seizure of firearms and ammunition from his Manchester home. He cannot possess firearms as a convicted felon.
UNITED STATES
‘Marvel’ soars in theaters
Captain Marvel has soared in North American theaters with weekend ticket sales of US$153 million, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported. Added to the US$302 million taken in internationally, the film’s estimated total of US$455 million for the three-day weekend would give it the sixth-highest global debut ever and the best domestic start for a superhero film since Disney and Marvel’s Black Panther opened last year with US$202 million, Variety magazine reported. The film stars Brie Larson, winner of a 2016 Best Actress Oscar for Room, as Carol Danvers, a former fighter pilot who gains superhuman powers in an accident and finds herself in the middle of a galactic conflict. Also starring are Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Djimon Hounsou, Annette Bening and Jude Law.
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