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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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