SOUTH AFRICA
Pistorius appeal heard
Oscar Pistorius could know before the end of the month whether he will return to jail for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp as prosecutors start an appeal to convict the Paralympian gold medalist of murder. Prosecutors and the legal team of Pistorius, 28, were due to face off in front of five judges at the Supreme Court of Appeal yesterday after the athlete was released under house arrest last month. High Court Judge Thokozile Masipa sentenced him to a five-year jail sentence in October last year for the lesser charge of culpable homicide, or manslaughter, of Steenkamp, who Pistorius said he thought was an intruder in his home when he fired four bullets through a locked toilet door on Valentine’s Day 2013.
HAITI
Election results postponed
The provisional electoral council said on Monday that news on presidential vote results had been delayed. The announcement of preliminary results that was set for yesterday, but it has been pushed back to tomorrow amid reports of irregularities that have to be investigated, the council said in a statement. Haiti celebrated peaceful elections with a high turnout on Sunday last week as the poorest country in the Americas seeks to shed chronic political instability and get back on its feet. The elections come nearly five years after Haitian President Michel Martelly came to power in a country that has failed to find democratic stability since the end of the 30-year dictatorship in 1986.
ITALY
Official defends fascist cake
A senior official in the northern region of Veneto has defended a birthday cake that was made for him decorated with Nazi and fascist symbols, saying that Benito Mussolini had modernized the nation and was “fine,” apart from his alliance with Adolf Hitler and the adoption of race laws during the fascist era. “I am not resigning and I am not ashamed of the fascist symbol,” Massimo Giorgetti told radio show La Zanzara. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s “exultation” of Cuban President Raul Castro was worse, he added. Giorgetti, the vice president of the Veneto legislature and a member of Forza Italia, the conservative party led by the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, said on his Facebook page that the cake was simply a “playful gesture by old comrades and friends at a private party.”
UNITED STATES
More middle-aged dying
Middle-aged white Americans are dying at increasing rates from drug and alcohol use, as well as suicide, in what researchers on Monday described as an “epidemic” that raises concern for the future. Since 1998, the mortality rate among whites aged 45 to 54 has risen steadily and while the reasons remain unclear, experts pointed to the increasing availability of prescription painkillers, a subsequent shift toward heroin use and economic struggles. About a half million lives have been lost in this demographic since 1998, similar to the number of people killed by HIV/AIDS, the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said. “Addictions are hard to treat and pain is hard to control, so those currently in midlife may be a ‘lost generation,’ whose future is less bright than those who preceded them,” the study by economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton of Princeton University said. From 1978 to 1998, the mortality rate for whites between age 45 and 54 declined by about 2 percent per year, but that began to change in 1998, and specifically for whites, as death rates began to rise about a 0.5 percent per year.
CHINA
Zhou ally given 12 years
A former senior official and ally of disgraced former domestic security head Zhou Yongkang (周永康) was yesterday sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption. Li Chongxi (李崇禧), who headed a political advisory body in Sichuan Province, one of Zhou’s powerbases, was convicted of taking bribes of about 11 million yuan (US$1.7 million), the Nanchang People’s Intermediate Court said on a verified social media account. Assets worth 1 million yuan were confiscated from him, as was a digital recorder he had used, the court said. Li is the latest in a long string of Zhou’s former allies to be jailed under President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) sweeping anti-corruption drive, which some have described as a political purge.
PAKISTAN
Anti-Taliban elder killed
A roadside bomb yesterday illed an anti-Taliban tribal elder in a lawless district bordering Afghanistan, officials said. The bomb exploded when Malik Mohammad Younis, a prominent elder of the Salarzai tribe, was traveling in a vehicle with his two sons in Gulloshah Village near Khar, the main town in Bajaur District, where Taliban militants have been active. “Malik Mohammad Younis was killed and his two sons were wounded after a bomb planted on a roadside exploded as their vehicle passed,” tribal administration official Saaz Mohammad said.
AFGHANISTAN
Woman stoned to death
A young woman who was married against her will has been stoned to death by extremists after she was caught eloping with another man, local officials said yesterday. Graphic video of the stoning shows the woman, Rokhsahana, aged between 19 and 21, in a hole in the ground as men almost casually hurl stones at her with sickening thuds. Rokhsahana can be heard repeating the shahada, or Muslim profession of faith, her voice growing increasingly high-pitched in the nearly 30-second clip run in local media. Local authorities confirmed the footage. The killing took place about a week ago in Ghalmeen, an area about 40km from the Ghor provincial capital of Firozkoh, Governor Seema Joyenda said. Rokhsahana had been “stoned to death by Taliban, local religious leaders and irresponsible armed warlords,” said Joyenda, one of the nation’s only two female governors. She called on Kabul to take action to “clean the area.”
ZIMBABWE
Reporters nabbed: watchdog
Police have arrested journalists at a state newspaper over a story implicating police officers and parks authorities in the poisoning of at least 60 elephants, a media complaints watchdog said yesterday. “We confirm the arrest of three journalists and we condemn the arrest,” Loughty Dube, director of the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe said. “It’s barbaric in a democracy. It infringes on the constitution which provides for freedom of expression.” Sunday Mail editor Mabasa Sasa, investigations editor Brian Chitemba and reporter Tinashe Farawo were detained at Harare Central Police Station, Dube said. Police said they would issue a statement at a media briefing. According to the Herald, police denied that an investigation was under way. The Herald said the trio were accused of publishing falsehoods following a story in this week’s edition of the Sunday Mail. The report said a police assistant commissioner, rangers in the parks and wildlife department, an Asian businessman and several junior officers were being investigated for the poisoning of at least 60 elephants in separate incidents.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
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