GREECE
Grenade attack claimed
A far-left group on Monday claimed responsibility for last week’s grenade attack on the French embassy in Athens, which slightly wounded a police officer on duty. Police were trying to verify a claim by the Organization of Revolutionary Autodefense, published on the alternative Web site Indymedia, for Thursday’s attack. The grenade left a tennis ball-sized hole in the pavement and shrapnel marks on the embassy gate and guard box. Reports said the policeman, who sustained leg injuries, had barely enough time to take shelter in the bullet-proof box as the grenade exploded. The same group had claimed responsibility for firing shots at the Mexican embassy in Athens in July 2014. The lengthy claim said France was targeted for several reasons — the death of environmentalist Remi Fraisse, who was killed by a bullet fired by a French policeman in October 2014 during a protest, the clearing of the “Jungle” camp in Calais housing thousands of refugees trying to cross into Britain, and the life sentence being served by Lebanese national Georges Ibrahim Abdallah in France for terrorist acts.
ITALY
Refugee drownings rise
Another five people have been added to the tally of more than 4,200 refugees who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean this year, the coast guard said yesterday. The coast guard, which coordinates search and rescue operations in the waters between Libya and the nation’s southern coast, said a total of 550 people had been saved during five separate operations on Monday. The rescues all involved efforts to get people off overcrowded rubber dinghies in waters off Libya. Five corpses were recovered, the coast guard said.
ITALY
Sculpture incident probed
Police in Rome were examining CCTV footage in a bid to identify vandals who damaged one of the city’s most famous pieces of public sculpture, Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Elephant and Obelisk. The landmark work, tucked away in a little square near the Pantheon, features an elephant carrying the obelisk on its back and was first placed in the Piazza della Minerva in the 17th century. Bernini oversaw the sculpture of the elephant, which had the tip of its left trunk broken off in the overnight incident. The elephant was commissioned by then-pope Alexander VII to support an obelisk from ancient Egypt that had only recently been excavated.
UNITED STATES
Franklin grave funds sought
A fundraising campaign has been launched to save the damaged gravestone of Benjamin Franklin at the Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia. The Christ Church Preservation Trust told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the marble ledger tablet marking Franklin’s final resting place had recently developed a significant crack. The ritual of tossing pennies onto Franklin’s grave has been blamed for causing the crack. Tens of thousands of coins are thrown onto the marker each year in tribute of Franklin’s famous adage, “a penny saved, is a penny earned.” Franklin, who died in 1790, was one of seven signers of the Declaration of Independence buried at the graveyard across from Independence Mall. The trust has received grants to restore the site, but is seeking another US$10,000 for the project.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
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