BRAZIL
Temer undergoes surgery
President Michel Temer was spending the weekend recuperating in the hospital after undergoing angioplasty in three blocked coronary arteries, doctors said on Saturday. Temer, 77, late on Friday had the procedure to widen obstructed arteries and have at least one stent implanted at the heart unit of the Sirio-Libanes Hospital in Sao Paulo. “The procedure was a success and the president is recuperating,” doctor Fernando Ganem, the medical supervisor, said in a statement. Temer is to be released today and therefore had to put off a planned visit that day by Bolivian President Evo Morales, the presidency said.
HONDURAS
President seeks re-election
The nation’s 6 million voters yesterday were to cast ballots in a controversial election in which President Juan Orlando Hernandez is seeking a second mandate despite a constitutional one-term limit. His conservative National Party — which controls the executive, legislative and judicial branches — contends that a 2015 Supreme Court ruling allows Hernandez’s re-election. However, the opposition has denounced his bid, saying the court does not have the power to overrule the 1982 constitution. The nation has one of the highest murder rates in the world, although that metric has fallen under Hernandez’s last four years in office.
NIGERIA
Militants seize Borno town
Suspected members of the Islamic militant group Boko Haram on Saturday took over a town in the state of Borno, residents said. “We hurriedly took our families to the bushes before they could get us. Almost every resident is hiding here,” said Wakil Bulama, one of two residents who spoke to reporters by telephone. Residents said attackers entered Magumeri, around 50km from Borno state capital Maiduguri, at around 7pm. They said the insurgents shot sporadically and threw explosive devices, prompting locals to flee to a forest. A military source who did not want to be identified said that Magumeri had been attacked, but could not confirm whether it had been seized.
IRAN
Longer missile range warned
The deputy head of the Revolutionary Guards told Europe that if it threatens Tehran, the guards would increase the range of missiles to more than 2,000km, the Fars news agency reported on Saturday. France has called for an “uncompromising” dialogue with Iran about its ballistic missile program and a possible negotiation over the issue separate from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. “If we have kept the range of our missiles to 2,000km, it’s not due to lack of technology... We are following a strategic doctrine,” Brigadier General Hossein Salami said, according to Fars. “So far we have felt that Europe is not a threat, so we did not increase the range of our missiles, but if Europe wants to turn into a threat, we will increase the range of our missiles.”
YEMEN
Drone strike kills seven
A drone strike has killed seven suspected members of al-Qaeda in southern Yemen, a security official said yesterday. The US is the only force known to operate armed drones over Yemen. “A drone likely to be American” killed all seven overnight as they were aboard three vehicles on the road from the southern province of Shabwa to the central province of Bayda, the official said. Washington considers the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to be the radical group’s most dangerous branch.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
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