SRI LANKA
HRW presses for boycott
Human Rights Watch (HRW) yesterday urged Commonwealth leaders to boycott a summit Sri Lanka is hosting to protest against its failure to investigate abuses by the military during a decades-long fight against separatists. The New York-based group has written to the leaders of the 54-member bloc urging them to stay away from the Nov. 15 to 17 summit and send only a low-level delegation. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has already announced he will boycott the meeting, but others, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, are expected to attend.
THAILAND
Man acquitted of royal slur
A court yesterday acquitted a man whose own brother accused him of defaming the monarch, a grave charge punishable by up to 15 years in jail. A judge who read out the verdict said there was not enough evidence to convict Yuthapoom Martnok. His brother Thanawat had been his only accuser, and other relatives had insisted Yuthapoom never insulted the crown. Yuthapoom was imprisoned for a year and denied bail on national security grounds. He was to be freed later yesterday.
BULGARIA
Markov murder probe closed
The nation’s chief prosecutor has closed a probe into one of the most notorious killings of the Cold War, saying that after 35 years a dissident’s murder with a poison-tipped umbrella has reached the statute of limitations. Georgi Markov, a journalist and government critic who fled the nation and settled in the UK, was jabbed in the thigh with an umbrella tip on Sept. 7, 1978, as he waited for a bus at London’s Waterloo Bridge. He developed a fever and died four days later. Suspicion fell on the Bulgarian secret police, but no one has been arrested or charged in the case. Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov said on Thursday that his office was ready to provide legal assistance to British authorities. There is no statute of limitations on murder in the UK.
FRANCE
Jeweler shoots thief
A 67-year-old jeweler in Nice has received an outpouring of support on the Internet after being detained on suspicion of murder for shooting dead a teenager fleeing his shop with stolen gems. A Facebook page set up in support of Stephan Turk had attracted more than 55,000 likes by Thursday afternoon, a day after the jeweler was placed in custody on suspicion of murder. Turk was held up at gunpoint by two men wearing helmets as he opened his small jewelry shop on Wednesday morning. Closed-circuit video images show he was punched and kicked before being forced to open his safe. When the robbers fled on a motorcycle with the loot, Turk shot at them three times with a small gun, hitting the 18-year-old sitting on the back of the scooter at least once in the back, Bedos said. The teenager’s dead body was found in an adjacent street, while the driver of the scooter got away with the rifle used in the robbery.
BRAZIL
Rousseff wants Web servers
President Dilma Rousseff has asked congress to urgently take up a so-called “Internet constitution” that could force foreign technology companies like Facebook and Google to store data of local users on servers within the country. Her request comes after several reports about the US National Security Agency’s spy program that has aggressively focused on the nation. Rousseff met earlier this week with the bill’s author, Deputy Alessandro Molon. The Internet bill has been before the lower house since 2011. By law, with the president’s request, the bill now must be voted on within 45 days.
UNITED STATES
Immigration activists held
About 100 women were arrested on Thursday at a protest in Washington calling for the Congress to pass stalled immigration reform, police said. The US Capitol Police said the women were arrested for obstructing roadways in front of the House of Representatives. Several of the protesters were themselves undocumented, including one woman, Maria, who said she felt strongly enough about the need for immigration reform to risk deportation with her arrest. “That’s the same risk I live every day, when I take my daughters to school and when I go to work,” she said. “For 20 years I’ve been living in the shadows, and I’m tired of living that way,” she said.
UNITED STATES
Audio pioneer Dolby dies
Ray Dolby, the engineer who pioneered the noise reduction in audio recordings that produced clearer sound for music and movies, died on Thursday. He was 80. Dolby, whose name became synonymous with home sound systems and movie theaters and won an Oscar, a Grammy and two Emmys for his work, died at his home in San Francisco, said the company he founded, Dolby Laboratories. Dolby had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in recent years and had been diagnosed with leukemia in July. “Though he was an engineer at heart, my father’s achievements in technology grew out of a love of music and the arts,” Dolby’s son, novelist Tom Dolby, said in a statement.
UNITED STATES
Molasses spill kills fish
Hawaiian health officials warned swimmers, surfers and snorkelers to stay out of the waters near Honolulu after a leak of 1,270 tonnes of molasses killed hundreds of fish, potentially attracting sharks. So many fish had died by Thursday that the Hawaii Department of Health tripled its cleanup crews. A brown plume was spotted seeping into Honolulu Harbor and Keehi Lagoon on Monday after a ship hauling molasses to the West Coast pulled out to sea. By Tuesday, a leak was discovered in a molasses pipeline used to load the sweet, sticky liquid onto ships operated by Matson Navigation Co.
UNITED STATES
Baggy pants foil getaway
A robber who was running away with his hands full of loot from an Orlando, Florida, church was caught when his baggy pants started slipping off, Orange County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Jane Watrel said. She said the man, Anthony Jason Garcia, 31, had been praying in the sanctuary of a large Catholic church near Walt Disney World on Wednesday when he arose, went into the gift shop, grabbed the cash drawer and ran toward the courtyard with church maintenance director Joe Larkin in pursuit. As they ran, Garcia’s baggy pants began to fall down, Watrel said. She said Larkin plunged for Garcia and pulled his pants down further, tripping him up.
MONEY GRAB: People were rushing to collect bills scattered on the ground after the plane transporting money crashed, which an official said hindered rescue efforts A cargo plane carrying money on Friday crashed near Bolivia’s capital, damaging about a dozen vehicles on highway, scattering bills on the ground and leaving at least 15 people dead and others injured, an official said. Bolivian Minister of Defense Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 plane was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency when it “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, before ending up in a nearby field. Firefighters managed to put out the flames that engulfed the aircraft. Fire chief Pavel Tovar said at least 15 people died, but
LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER: By showing Ju-ae’s ability to handle a weapon, the photos ‘suggest she is indeed receiving training as a successor,’ an academic said North Korea on Saturday released a rare image of leader Kim Jong-un’s teenage daughter firing a rifle at a shooting range, adding to speculation that she is being groomed as his successor. Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, has long been seen as the next in line to rule the secretive, nuclear-armed state, and took part in a string of recent high-profile outings, including last week’s military parade marking the closing stages of North Korea’s key party congress. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a photo of Ju-ae shooting a rifle at an outdoor shooting range, peering through a rifle scope
India and Canada yesterday reached a string of agreements, including on critical mineral cooperation and a “landmark” uranium supply deal for nuclear power, the countries’ leaders said in New Delhi. The pacts, which also covered technology and promoting the use of renewable energy, were announced after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed a fresh start in the relationship between their nations. “Our ties have seen a new energy, mutual trust and positivity,” Modi said. Carney’s visit is a key step forward in ties that effectively collapsed in 2023 after Ottawa accused New Delhi
Gaza is rapidly running out of its limited fuel supply and stocks of food staples might become tight, officials said, after Israel blocked the entry of fuel and goods into the war-shattered territory, citing fighting with Iran. The Israeli military closed all Gaza border crossings on Saturday after announcing airstrikes on Iran carried out jointly with the US. Israeli authorities late on Monday night said that they would reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel to Gaza yesterday, for “gradual entry of humanitarian aid” into the strip, without saying how much. Israeli authorities previously said the crossings could not be operated safely during
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