THAILAND
Royal insult man pardoned
A Thai man who was serving a 13-year term for posting online content deemed offensive to the kingdom’s monarchy said on Friday he had been given a royal pardon and released from prison. Thantawut Thaweewarodomkul, a former administrator of the Nor Por Chor USA Web site, which has links to the “Red Shirt” protest movement, was convicted under controversial lese majeste and computer crime laws. “I was in there for three years, three months and five days. I am a bit confused by the outside world after getting used to being behind the [prison] wall,” the 41-year-old said after he was released from the high-security Bangkok Remand Prison. Under the controversial lese majeste rules, anyone convicted of insulting the Thai king, queen, heir or regent faces up to 15 years in prison on each count. The royal family is a highly sensitive subject in politically turbulent Thailand. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 85, is revered by many Thais, but has been in hospital since September 2009. Thantawut said last year that prison officials had ordered other inmates to beat him during his time in prison. Rights campaigners say the lese majeste law has been politicized, noting that many of those charged are linked to the Red Shirts, who are loyal to ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
NIGERIA
Thirty killed in school attack
Islamic extremists have killed 29 students and one teacher in an attack on a boarding school in the northeast of the country. Survivors being treated for burns and gunshots wounds say some students were burned alive in the attack before dawn yesterday on Government Secondary School in the town of Mamudo in Yobe state. As he wept over the bodies of his two boys, farmer Malam Abdullahi swore he would withdraw three remaining sons from a nearby school. He complained there was no protection for students despite the deployment of thousands of troops since the government declared a state of emergency in mid-May in three northeastern states.
IRAQ
Grandpa weds 22-year-old
A 92-year-old farmer married a woman 70 years his junior in a village north of Baghdad, he said on Friday, voicing happiness at getting hitched alongside two teenage grandchildren who also tied the knot. Musali Mohammed al-Mujamaie married 22-year-old Muna Mukhlif al-Juburi on Thursday evening, three years after the death of his first wife of 58 years, with whom he raised 16 children in his home village of Gubban, which lies just south of the central city of Samarra. “I am so happy to get married with my grandsons,” Mujamaie said after the ceremony. “I feel like a 20-year-old!” Mujamaie said the marriage of his two grandsons, aged 16 and 17, was repeatedly delayed while his own wedding was being arranged, so that the three could tie the knot on the same day.
COLOMBIA
Mafia boss caught: official
Police on Friday arrested an alleged boss of Italy’s Calabrian mafia, who is considered the most wanted drug trafficker in Europe, the defense ministry said. Roberto Pannunzi, who is wanted in Italy on drug trafficking charges, was detained in a Bogota shopping center with the help of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the ministry said in a statement. “When he was captured, Pannunzi identified himself with a fake Venezuelan identification card bearing the name Silvano Martino,” it said. The statement said Pannunzi is the “chief of the ’Ndrangheta criminal organization.”
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
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