IRAQ
Over 5,000 civilians killed
At least 5,576 Iraqi civilians have been killed this year in violence, the UN said yesterday. At least 11,665 have been wounded since January, when Sunni insurgents led by al-Qaeda offshoot known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant overran the city of Fallujah in the western province of Anbar, the UN said in a report. The UN found the group had executed civilians, committed sexual violence against women and girls, carried out kidnappings and targeted assassinations of political, community, and religious leaders and killed children, among other violations. The report also details violations committed by government forces and affiliated groups, citing “summary executions/extrajudicial killings of prisoners and detainees,” which it said may constitute a war crime.
SOUTH KOREA
Nation to develop fighter jet
The Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday endorsed a plan for the country to design its own mid-level fighter jet, which a state think tank estimated would cost up to 8.5 trillion won (US$8.24 billion). Dubbed the KF-X program, the fighter jet is expected to be built by the nation’s sole jet builder, Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), after being codeveloped with Lockheed Martin Corp, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. The Joint Chiefs said in a statement that they had endorsed a twin-engine fighter jet to be developed for delivery starting in 2025. KAI makes the T-50 family of jets, the nation’s first home-built light trainer and fighter, which was codeveloped by Lockheed Martin. KAI sold 12 T-50 variants to the Philippines in March, after previously exporting the jets to Iraq and Indonesia.
SRI LANKA
Politician jailed over killing
The High Court yesterday sentenced a ruling party politician to 20 years in prison for killing a British tourist and raping his Russian girlfriend more than two years ago. Three others were given the same sentence as Sampath Vidanapathirana by the court. It found them guilty of murdering Khuram Sheikh and raping his girlfriend at a tourist resort on Christmas Day in 2011. The case attracted global attention amid allegations that Vidanapathirana was enjoying impunity because of his connections to the family of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
CHINA
Typhoon renews strength
A typhoon heading toward southern China has strengthened into a super typhoon, the government said yesterday, ordering an all-out effort to prevent loss of life from a storm that has killed at least 54 people in the Philippines. Typhoon Rammasun, which was packing winds of up to 180kph, was expected to make landfall between the provinces of Hainan and Guangdong yesterday afternoon, the National Meteorological Center said on its Web site. Waves could reach up to 13m high in northern parts of the South China Sea and residents were being warned away from coastal areas, Xinhua news agency said.
UNITED STATES
Package delays Obama
President Barack Obama was held aboard Air Force One for more than a half-hour after returning to Washington on Thursday night because of a suspicious package found at the White House, a spokesman said. Obama, who spent the day traveling in Delaware and New York, landed at Andrews Air Force Base just after 10pm, but remained on the plane for 40 minutes while White House security checked out the package. It was the third suspicious package found at the White House on Thursday.
UNITED STATES
Chikungunya case reported
A Florida man is the first person in the nation to contract the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus locally, officials said on Thursday. Previously the only cases recorded had been of people who contracted the virus after getting bitten while traveling, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, an average of about 28 cases a year since 2006. “The arrival of chikungunya virus, first in the tropical Americas and now in the United States, underscores the risks posed by this and other exotic pathogens,” said Roger Nasci, chief of agency’s Arboviral Diseases Branch. The agency said it was working closely with the Florida Department of Health to investigate how the man contracted the virus.
UNITED STATES
Ricin sender gets 18 years
Actress Shannon Guess Richardson,who tried to blame her husband for sending ricin-laced letters to Obama, then-New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and a gun control activist, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Wednesday. US District Judge Michael Schneider sentenced Richardson, 35, to 216 months in federal prison on a biological weapons charge and ordered her to pay US$367,222.29 in restitution. She pleaded guilty in December last year to possession of a toxin for use as a weapon. Prosecutors said she had bought the ingredient to make ricin and then mailed three threatening letters containing the drug on May 20. Ten days later, Richardson traveled to Shreveport, Louisiana, and told police that her husband was responsible for sending the letters. She was arrested in June last year.
TURKEY
‘Bookworm’ driver sacked
An Istanbul bus driver was fired on Wednesday after video footage showed him immersed in a book while travelling at high speed on a busy street. In the video shot by a passenger, the driver holds his book open over his steering wheel, paying far more attention to the words than the road. He only occasionally glances at the street. Goksel Ovacik, the head of the bus company, told private CNN-Turk television that the man had been sacked and had his driving license revoked after the passenger who filmed the video sent it to city authorities. The passenger also launched a criminal complaint against the driver for risking the lives of those in the bus.
CANADA
Senator faces 31 charges
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Thursday laid 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery against a suspended senator who is accused of receiving US$90,000 from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff. The charges against Senator Mike Duffy cover more than US$200,000 in allegedly falsified expenses as well as money Duffy allegedly received from Nigel Wright, Harper’s former chief of staff, to repay the government for the improperly claimed expenses. If convicted, Duffy could be face prison.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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