SINGAPORE
Activist charged over rally
Authorities yesterday charged human rights activist Jolovan Wham for organizing public assemblies without a police permit, prompting rights groups to call on the government to guarantee the right to peaceful assembly. The 37-year-old former executive director of a group advocating the rights of foreign workers in Singapore could be fined up to S$10,000 (US$7,435) or imprisoned for up to six months, or both, if found guilty of repeat offenses. Wham was involved in a protest in June by several blindfolded activists who held up books on a subway train in a call for justice for 22 people detained in 1987 under a tough internal security law. He was also charged for vandalism and refusing to sign statements made during investigations, the Singapore Police Force said. He faces a total of seven charges stemming from public assemblies he organized from November last year, it said. Human Rights Watch urged the government to drop the case against “peaceful protester” Wham and to amend what it called a “draconian” law on public order to guarantee Singaporeans the right to peaceful assembly. A pre-trial conference for the case will take place on Dec. 13.
TURKEY
Hundreds more arrested
Prosecutors have issued detention warrants for 360 people in an operation targeting supporters of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen within the army, state-run Anadolu news agency reported yesterday. It said 333 of those facing arrest in the Istanbul-based operation were soldiers, 216 of them serving personnel. Ankara accuses Gulen and his network of orchestrating an attempted coup last year. Gulen denies the charge. Istanbul police officers were continuing operations to capture the suspects, it said. The private Dogan news agency said seven of those facing arrest were pilots.
UNITED STATES
Classified army data online
UpGuard, a California-based cybersecurity company, on Tuesday said that it found top secret files related to classified army communications systems sitting unprotected online for anyone to see. The data belonged to the US Army’s Intelligence and Security Command, a division of the army and the National Security Agency. The agency referred questions to the intelligence command, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. UpGuard analyst Chris Vickery discovered the unprotected data online on Sept. 28. Vickery notified the government about what he had found and was told on Oct. 10 that it had been secured. The data contained 47 files and folders that could be viewed, including three that could be downloaded. The exposed data included sensitive details concerning a battlefield intelligence platform, known as the Distributed Common Ground System-Army, as well as the platform’s troubled cloud auxiliary program codenamed “Red Disk.”
BOLIVIA
Morales cleared for 4th run
The nation’s highest court on Tuesday struck down limits on re-election in the constitution and election laws, paving the way for President Evo Morales to run for a fourth term in 2019. Morales’ Movement to Socialism (MAS) party in September asked the court to rescind legal limits barring elected authorities from seeking re-election indefinitely, saying they violate human rights. “All people that were limited by the law and the constitution are hereby able to run for office, because it is up to the Bolivian people to decide,” Macario Lahor Cortez, head of the Plurinational Constitutional Court, wrote in the ruling.
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
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
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
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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