United Nations
No delay for Kenya trial
The Security Council refused to delay the International Criminal Court trial of Kenya’s president and his deputy on crimes against humanity on Friday, opening a rift with the African Union, which lobbied intensively for the yearlong postponement. The African-sponsored resolution to delay the trials of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto was voted down with seven “yes” votes and eight abstentions — short of the minimum nine “yes” votes needed for approval. The African Union argued that the trial delay was essential because Kenya needs its leaders to help fight al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia and at home.
United states
Reward for Benghazi plotters
The Department of State on Friday said it has quietly offered a US$10 million reward since January for information leading to those behind the attack on Sept. 11 last year that killed the ambassador to Libya and three other Americans in Benghazi. The men died when militants believed to have ties to al-Qaeda affiliates attacked a loosely guarded diplomatic compound and a nearby CIA annex in the eastern Libyan city on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
France
Suspected cannibal ate heart
A suspected cannibal killed a 90-year-old in a sleepy southern village then pulled his heart and tongue out with the apparent intention of eating them with white beans, sources close to the case said on Friday. The young, homeless man slipped into his victim’s house at the edge of the isolated Nouilhan hamlet on Thursday evening, grabbed a metal object in the barn and smashed the old man’s skull, a source close to the probe said. According to his initial statements to investigators, the 26-year-old, who was responding “to messages or voices in his head,” set fire to the body and then extracted his victim’s heart and tongue to cook and eat them, added the source, who refused to be named, but had seen the crime scene.
Mexico
Mass graves found
Authorities have unearthed 24 bodies in clandestine graves in regions beset by drug cartel violence, officials said on Friday. Six bodies were discovered on Thursday buried in a lime tree orchard on the outskirts of the Pacific resort of Acapulco, in the southwestern state of Guerrero, local officials said. The 18 other were found in eight pits near the town of La Barca, at the border between the western states of Jalisco and Michoacan, an agent from the federal prosecutor’s office said. Michoacan State is a bastion of the Knights Templar drug cartel, which has been involved in turf wars against the Jalisco New Generation gang.
United States
Man charged over shooting
A white man who shot a black woman who knocked on his door after a late-night car crash in Michigan was charged with murder on Friday in a case that has stirred racial tensions. The death of Renisha McBride, 19, sparked protests and comparisons to Trayvon Martin, the black teenager whose killing last year at the hands of a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida provoked a national debate on racism and “stand your ground” self-defense laws. The evidence showed that homeowner Theodore Wafer, 54, shot McBride through a locked screen door after opening the storm door, prosecutors said. Wafer was charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and use of a gun during a felony.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
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