SYRIA
Turkey bombs Kurdish forces
Turkish warplanes yesterday conducted a barrage of airstrikes on Kurdish positions in the northeast of the country, leaving several fighters dead, Kurdish forces and a monitor said. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) said the strikes hit their positions near the border town of al-Malikiyah at 2am. “Turkish planes carried out a broad offensive on a YPG base that houses media and communication centers and some military installations,” the YPG statement said. “The treacherous attack killed and wounded fighters,” it added, without giving a toll. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Turkey carried out “dozens of simultaneous airstrikes” on YPG positions in Hasakeh Province overnight, confirming that a media center was hit.
SWITZERLAND
UN hosts Yemen conference
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and senior government officials from dozens of countries yesterday met to drum up funds for war-torn Yemen, considered the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis. Guterres and top diplomats from Switzerland and Sweden cohosted the conference in Geneva, aimed at helping raise US$2.1 billion in a UN relief appeal. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said “an alarming 18.8 million people are in need of humanitarian or protection assistance” in Yemen. War in the country has killed more than 10,000 civilians and pushed the nation to the brink of famine.
KENYA
Bus, tanker crash killing 27
A crash on Monday between a passenger bus and a tanker ferrying cooking oil killed 27 people along the main highway connecting Nairobi and the port city of Mombasa, police said. The accident occurred in the Kibwezi area at about midnight as the bus driver was trying to overtake another vehicle, but collided with the oncoming truck, Kibwezi police chief Leonard Kimaiyo said. “Twenty adults and three children died on the spot, while one adult died later in hospital,” Kimaiyo said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Wiki to combat ‘fake’ news
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has launched a Web site aimed at countering the spread of fake news by bringing together professional journalists and a community of volunteers and supporters to produce news articles. The new platform, called Wikitribune, will be free to access and carry no advertising, Wales said. “The news is broken, but we’ve figured out how to fix it,” he said in a promotional video posted on the Web site’s homepage. Wales said that because people expected to get news for free on the Internet, news sites were reliant on advertising money, which created strong incentives to generate so-called “clickbait,” to attract viewers.
CHINA
West Bank work banned
Beijing is not allowing its construction crews to work in the West Bank because it opposes Israeli settlements in what it considers occupied Palestinian territory. Israel officials on Sunday said that they had signed a deal with the government to bring construction crews to Israel. They would not address reports that the work would be restricted to only some areas. A Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman on Monday confirmed the West Bank restrictions. Spokesman Geng Shuang (耿爽) said the government values its relationship with Israel, but “opposes the construction of Jewish settlements on Palestine’s occupied territory.”
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
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