ENGLAND
‘Blackadder’s’ Nursie dies
Patsy Byrne, who played Nursie in the popular British television comedy Blackadder, has died aged 80 — the second star from the cult 1980s series to die in two weeks, after Rik Mayall’s sudden death. Denville Hall, a northwest London care home for elderly actors, said Byrne died on Tuesday. Her death came eight days after that of Mayall, who died aged 56 from a sudden heart failure following a run. Byrne played Nursie — Queen Elizabeth I’s bonkers former nanny, whose real name was Bernard — in Blackadder II. Educated in Kent, southeast England, Byrne joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, and played parts on the London stage. Blackadder was voted Britain’s second-best situation comedy series in a 2004 BBC-organized poll won by Only Fools and Horses.
GERMANY
Snowden rebuffs talks
Former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden is rejecting calls to meet in Moscow with a German parliamentary inquiry into the extent of surveillance by the US and its allies. Lawmakers from the inquiry panel had hoped to travel to Moscow soon for an informal meeting with Snowden. The plan emerged after opposition parties demanded that Germany allow Snowden to come to Berlin to testify, but the government said doing so would hurt relations with the US. Snowden’s German lawyer, Wolfgang Kaleck, wrote to the committee on Friday that he discussed the matter with Snowden and there is “no room or need for an oral, ‘informal’ meeting in Moscow,” where the American has temporary asylum, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur news agency reported. He said that substantial testimony is only possible in Germany.
ITALY
Berlusconi appeal opened
Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s legal challenge to a conviction of paying for sex with an underage prostitute opened on Friday as he spent his seventh morning working with Alzheimer’s patients as part of a tax-fraud sentence. Berlusconi is appealing a conviction, seven-year prison sentence and lifetime ban from politics. He denies having had sex with a Moroccan teenager, Karima el-Mahroug, better known as Ruby the heartstealer, amid a wider scandal of racy, sex-fueled bunga bunga parties at the then-prime minister’s villa near Milan. The appeals trial is focused on technicalities and is expected to conclude in four sessions, with a possible verdict on July 18. Berlusconi, 77, is performing community service four hours a week as part of his sentence for tax fraud. The four-year sentence was reduced to one year under a general amnesty, which can be applied to first convictions. Verdicts in the nation are not considered final until all appeals are exhausted.
ISRAEL
UNESCO says site ‘in danger’
The UN cultural agency has listed the Palestinian village of Battir as a World Heritage site in danger, raising hopes among residents that this will protect their community against the West Bank separation barrier. Battir, south of Jerusalem, has ancient farming terraces. In listing Battir on Friday, UNESCO said the village could face “irreversible damage” due to the barrier. The government says it is building the barrier to keep out Palestinian militants, while Palestinians say it is a land grab. The route of the barrier is before the Supreme Court. Battir’s lawyer, Ghiath Nasser, said on Saturday that he hopes the UNESCO vote will help sway the judges. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it is not clear if the barrier route will be changed.
ECUADOR
Bootleg liquor kills five
Five youths died on Friday after drinking bootleg liquor while apparently celebrating their country’s World Cup win over Honduras, authorities said on Saturday. Two others remain hospitalized following festivities after Friday’s match at a motel in Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas, according to a statement from the Ministry of the Interior. Last year, a court sentenced a man to a year in prison and another to five months behind bars for the bootleg-related deaths of 50 people.
UNITED STATES
Mayor a pirate in parade
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio portrayed himself as a man of the people in last year’s election. On Saturday, he became a pirate among mermaids. De Blasio showed up for Saturday’s zany Coney Island Mermaid Parade wearing a puffy pirate shirt and brandishing a fake sword. Organizers say he is the first mayor to come in costume.
CANADA
Duckling helper found guilty
A Quebec woman who stopped to help ducklings cross a busy highway was found guilty on Friday of causing the deaths of two motorcyclists who crashed into the rear of her car. A jury found Emma Czornobaj, 25, guilty of two counts of criminal negligence causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing death. She faces up to life in prison when she returns to court in August for sentencing. Czornobaj had stopped her car in the left lane of a highway south of Montreal in June 2010, the court heard. She was trying to round up a gaggle of ducklings that had been wandering in and out of traffic when an unsuspecting 50-year-old motorcyclist slammed into her car at more than 105kph. Both the motorcyclist and his passenger, his 16 year-old daughter, died in the collision.
MEXICO
Son of cartel leader captured
Federal police on Saturday captured a 22-year-old man who identified himself as the son of Servando “La Tuta” Gomez Martinez, leader of the Knights Templar cartel, officials said. Huber Gomez Patino was arrested in the town of Arteaga, Michoacan State, a stronghold of the gang, the office of the federal police said in a statement. The man “said that he was the son of Servando Gomez Martinez, and threatened federal agents with assassination if they did not release him,” the statement said. Gomez Patino had a weapon and 0.5kg of a synthetic drug, but “was captured before he could put up any resistance,” the statement added. Servando Gomez, alias “La Tuta” (“The Teacher”), is believed to have become the de facto boss of the cartel after marines killed its leader, Nazario “El Chayo” Moreno, on March 9.
UNITED STATES
Sing Sing museum mulled
An old power plant at Sing Sing could become a museum dedicated to the history of the infamous New York prison. The nearly derelict building once supplied the power for the “Old Sparky” electric chair that executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 on espionage charges. Supporters say the museum could house the chair and other artifacts, including prisoners’ homemade weapons. Sing Sing’s reputation was burnished by Hollywood, which used it as a setting for many movies. The lockup 48km up the Hudson River from New York City also inspired the saying now synonymous with incarceration: “up the river.” Museums at active prisons are rare. The power plant is on prison property, but separated from the 1,600 inmates by a high wall topped with guard towers.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
NEW STORM: investigators dubbed the attacks on US telecoms ‘Salt Typhoon,’ after authorities earlier this year disrupted China’s ‘Flax Typhoon’ hacking group Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday. The networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, along with other telecoms, were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data, the report said. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of Internet traffic, it said. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
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