ISRAEL
Firebomb suspects detained
Two Palestinians suspected of throwing a firebomb that wounded an 11-year-old girl and her father have been arrested in the West Bank, the Shin Bet security service said on Saturday. The two, including a 16-year-old, were detained overnight on Friday, hours after the incident at Azzoun village in the north of the occupied territory, a Shin Bet statement said. It said the two Palestinians hid in ambush above the road separating the Maale Shomron settlement from Azzoun before throwing the petrol bomb at a car carrying the Israelis. The vehicle caught fire and the girl was gravely injured. She was still being treated in hospital late on Saturday, Israeli media reported. Her father suffered light injuries in the attack. According to the military, in the first nine days of this month, Palestinians carried out 24 Molotov cocktail attacks, five of them targeting civilian cars.
GREECE
Lawmakers to vote today
Lawmakers were to try for a third and final time today to elect a new president and avoid a snap general election that could undermine the country’s international bailout. The definitive round of voting to choose a successor to President Karolos Papoulias comes during last-ditch efforts by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to get the government’s candidate elected and avert early polls. “The Greek people don’t want early elections. The Greek people understand where this adventure could lead,” Samaras said late on Saturday in an interview on Nerit public television.
BAHRAIN
Shiite leader summoned
The leader of the nation’s largest Shiite opposition group says he has been summoned for questioning by the Ministry of the Interior. Sheik Ali Salman, head of the al-Wefaq group, says authorities did not tell him why he was being summoned by criminal investigators yesterday. He said heavily armed government forces arrived at his house on Saturday to deliver the order. On Friday al-Wefaq members re-elected Salman as their secretary-general. Also on Friday, al-Wefaq organized a protest to press for greater rights from the Sunni-led monarchy. Salman says al-Wefaq had a ministry permit to hold the rally. The Bahrain News Agency quoted police as saying violations occurred during the rally and that organizers were consequently summoned.
ITALY
Baby born at sea
A baby born at sea on Christmas Day after his Nigerian mother was plucked from a floundering migrant boat by the navy has been baptized Testimony Salvatore in honor of the medics who delivered him. The two-day old infant, who weighed in at 2.7kg, and his 28-year-old mother were both recovering in hospital on Saturday after what was a smooth delivery in testing circumstances, according to the gynaecologist who oversaw it. The cheering Christmas tale came as it was confirmed that Italian authorities have identified a 32-year-old Egyptian man as a linchpin in the large-scale people smuggling that has been instrumental in sending asylum seekers and economic migrants across the Mediterranean in unprecedented numbers this year. Described as a trafficking “superboss” and named as Ahmed Mohamed Farrag Hanafi, the alleged trafficking overlord is now being pursued by the Egyptian authorities at Italy’s request, prosecutors in the Sicilian city of Catania confirmed. The suspect is thought to be based in the Kafr el-Sheikh Governorate in northern Egypt and had been identified as a result of intercepted mobile phone calls.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
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