AUSTRIA
Right-wing shindig crashed
Police officials said that a demonstration protesting the presence of right-wingers at a ball in Vienna has left at least two people injured and dozens of protesters detained. Police officers estimated that about 5,000 demonstrators gathered on Friday to oppose the ball at the imperial-era Hofburg Palace organized by the Freedom Party, which promotes xenophobia and has some neo-Nazi supporters. Some allegedly tried to break through police barricades and threw firecrackers. At least one police officer and one demonstrator were reported hurt, and 38 protesters were detained by the time the crowd started to thin shortly before midnight.
SPAIN
Shakira bears second son
Colombian pop star Shakira has given birth in Barcelona to her second child, a boy, she said on Friday. A statement posted on Shakira’s Web site said the baby, Sasha, was born on Thursday night. “The hospital confirmed that both mother and child are in excellent health,” the statement said. The singer and her boyfriend, Spanish soccer player Gerard Pique, had their first child, a son named Milan, in 2013. Shakira, 37, and Pique, 27, met in 2010, but confirmed that they were in a relationship only in March 2011. The Hips Don’t Lie singer, one of the best-selling Latin pop idols, gave birth in Barcelona’s Teknon clinic, local media outlets had earlier reported. Pique is a defender for Spanish La Liga team FC Barcelona.
GERMANY
Tank ace dies at 92
Otto Carius, a World War II German panzer ace credited with destroying more than 150 enemy tanks, mostly on the eastern front, has died at 92. Carius died at home in western Germany on Jan. 24 after a short illness, according to a statement issued on Friday on the Web site of the Tiger Pharmacy, which he founded in 1956. He was drafted in 1940 as an infantryman and volunteered for a tank unit, according to his autobiography, Tigers in the Mud. Eventually promoted to first lieutenant, he was wounded several times and received many awards, including the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves. In the foreward to his book’s 2003 edition, Carius defended his service to Nazi Germany, saying that combat troops should not be painted with the broad brush of guilt.
ARGENTINA
Only Nisman’s DNA on gun
Testing of the pistol apparently used to kill a prosecutor who had leveled charges against the president has found traces of DNA belonging only to him, the lead investigator in the case said on Friday. Alberto Nisman was found dead in his apartment on Jan. 18, hours before he was to detail allegations that President Christina Fernandez protected former Iranian officials accused of orchestrating the 1994 car-bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires. Investigator Viviana Fein said on Friday that traces of DNA found on the pistol, its ammunition and other items from the scene “undoubtedly” matched that of Nisman. She also said that a security camera in the service elevator of his apartment building was not working and there were no cameras in its stairwell. Supporters of Nisman have insisted that the prosecutor would not have killed himself and even Fernandez has said that, contrary to initial findings, his death could not have been a suicide. Nisman had feared for his safety and 10 federal police were assigned to protect him. The officers were suspended as part of the investigation, but none have been named as suspects.
HONDURAS
Four men shot to death
Four men were shot to death on the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa, on Friday, officials and witnesses said. Witnesses said the four men were talking on a street corner in a slum neighborhood when a car pulled up and at least six people emerged. The Honduran civil defense agency confirmed the killing. President Juan Orlando Hernandez said this week the nation had reduced its homicide rate from 86 to 66 per 100,000 people.
UNITED STATES
Man has ‘hangover’ episode
A Hong Kong businessman has been charged with breaking into a northwestern Montana home after allegedly getting drunk at a wedding and causing extensive damage in a case a judge says “reads like a Hangover movie.” Montana sheriff’s deputies responding to a report of a naked intruder at a residence found food strewn across the kitchen, a frying pan heating “some sort of wretched, mysterious substance” on the stove, urine-soaked formal wear in the living room and flooding from a damaged water line. Guneet Banga was found naked and asleep in the bedroom early on Sept. 6 last year. Investigators learned that Banga had attended a wedding a few houses away and apparently, while intoxicated, mistakenly broke into someone else’s house to get some sleep. Charges of felony criminal mischief and misdemeanor criminal trespass were filed on Friday last week and Banga was ordered to appear for arraignment on Wednesday. He did not show up.
VENEZUELA
US reporter appears in ad
A US reporter briefly arrested in Venezuela in 2013 said he has unwittingly turned up in an advertisement promoting the nation. Miami Herald Bogota-based correspondent Jim Wyss was detained for two days near the border with Colombia in November 2013 for not having a journalist visa. So he was surprised this week when a friend pointed out a picture of him on the Twitter feed of state-funded broadcaster Telesur alongside a big heart and the caption, “We love Venezuela ... for receiving foreigners like their own.” The picture, according to a copy blogged by Wyss (http://tinyurl.com/ofvacga), showed him hugging a colleague at Miami airport right after his release from the nation. “I really hope someone in Telesur had a wicked sense of humor, but I fear it’s just a mistake,” Wyss said, laughing, on Friday.
UNITED STATES
Zimmerman evades charges
A Florida man cleared two years ago of murdering unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in a case that fueled debate about racism in the nation is not set to face charges over recent allegations of assault, local media reported. A woman described as his ex-girlfriend told police George Zimmerman had thrown a wine bottle at her in a domestic dispute. However, she is no longer cooperating with authorities, prompting police to drop the charges, the Orlando Sentinel reported on Friday.
VENEZUELA
Oil official accused of graft
An oil ministry official in charge of overseeing the domestic fuel market has been arrested on suspicion of corruption, the state prosecutors’ office said in a statement on Friday. Nubia Parada would appear in court in the coming hours, the statement said, without providing additional details of what she is accused of. President Nicolas Maduro last month said Venezuela needs to raise fuel prices to limit losses to state coffers which are estimated at about US$12 billion per year.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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