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.
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
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
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