UNITED STATES
May Day arrests in Seattle
Seattle police on Sunday evening used pepper spray to disperse black-clad anti-capitalist protesters authorities say threw rocks, flares, bricks and Molotov cocktails at officers during a rowdy May Day gathering. Eight men ranging in age from about 20 to 32 were charged, along with a teenaged girl, police said. Authorities said five officers were hurt, none seriously. The clashes followed a peaceful march earlier in the day by advocates for workers and immigrants, just one of several events in cities nationwide to call for better wages for workers, an end to deportations and support for President Barack Obama’s administration plan to give work permits to immigrants in the country illegally whose children are citizens. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray blamed the “senseless violence” on a “different crowd” from those who had attended the earlier march.
UNITED KINGDOM
Adams criticized for tweets
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams late on Sunday used a racial slur on his Twitter account, days before his party is to contest regional elections in Northern Ireland.
His tweet compared a former slave’s struggle against slave-owners in the Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained with the treatment of Irish nationalists in a Catholic area of Belfast, Ballymurphy. “Watching Django Unchained — A Ballymurphy Nigger!” Adams tweeted. A second message read “Django — an uppity Fenian!” The tweets were deleted shortly after being posted, but had already been widely shared and criticized. Reacting to the furor, Adams said his use of the “N-word” was ironic. “Anyone who has seen the film, as I did last evening, and who is familiar with the plight of nationalists in the north until recently, would know that my tweets about the film and the use of the N-word were ironic and not intended to cause any offence whatsoever,” he said in a Sinn Fein statement. “Attempts to suggest that I am a racist are without credibility. I am opposed to racism and have been all my life.” Ballymurphy is known as the site of 1971 killings of civilians by British soldiers.
COLOMBIA
Peruvian gangster deported
The government on Sunday deported top Peruvian crime lord Gerson Galvez, a day after arresting the man described as the new version of Mexico’s Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Galvez, also known as Caracol (Snail), was arrested in a restaurant in Medellin, the Ministry of Defense said late on Saturday. He was handed over to Peruvian authorities because of his “dangerousness” and flown back to his home country, National Police Chief Jorge Nieto told a press conference. President Juan Manuel Santos congratulated the police on Twitter, describing Galvez as “one of the most feared crime capos in the region.”
SOUTH AFRICA
Lions explore new home
Lions rescued from circuses in Colombia and Peru on Sunday scratched their manes on trees and explored their new territory bush after being released into a sanctuary north of Johannesburg. One of the 33 lions, a male known as Zeus, let out a mighty roar before stepping out of his cage into an enclosure where he will spend the coming months being monitored by a vet. The lions arrived at the Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary shortly after dawn on Sunday, ending a two-day journey from South America.
Many of them had teeth and their claws removed by their circus owners so they will remain in enclosures and can never be released into the wild.
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
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.
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
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