BOLIVIA
Prison raid triggers battle
Police raided notorious Palmasola prison early on Wednesday in a hunt for weapons and other contraband, touching off a gunbattle with prisoners who control the jail. Seven inmates died and 25 people, including six officers, were wounded, authorities said. About 2,300 police officers participated in the operation and were supported by helicopters. National police Colonel Faustino Mendoza said officers seized arms, equipment to distill alcohol, marijuana plants and other drugs from the section that houses the most dangerous inmates. “There was misrule in this prison,” he said.
BRAZIL
Politician assassinated
Leftist Rio de Janiero City Councilor Marielle Franco, who grew up in one of the city’s most violent slums and worked on human rights issues, was shot and killed on Wednesday, authorities said. The attack outraged politicians and the public, and protest rallies were called for yesterday. Franco’s driver also died in the attack, in which a car pulled up alongside her car as she returned from a black women’s empowerment event and shots were fired at them. One of her aides was wounded. The federal government said it is investigating the shooting. Amnesty International said the probe should be rigorous and focus on “the context, motive and responsibility” for the killing. Franco, 38, belonged to the PSOL party.
PANAMA
Mossack-Fonseca closing
Mossack-Fonseca, the law firm whose more than 11 million leaked documents known as the “Panama Papers” in 2016 shed light on how the world’s wealthy exploit financial secrecy to hide assets says it is closing at the end of this month. The data breach from the firm was published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shook the ranks of the rich and powerful. The firm said in a statement on Wednesday that at one time it had offices in 40 nations and about 600 employees. After the publication of so many secrets it has closed offices and pared its staff to about 50.
UNITED STATES
Navy pilots die in crash
The Navy on Wednesday said two of its aviators had been killed in an F/A-18F Super Hornet crash during a training flight off the coast of Key West, Florida. The Navy said in a statement the bodies of the pilot and weapons systems officer were recovered from the water after the two-seater jet crashed on its final approach to Naval Air Station Key West. The incident is under investigation, it said. The names of the aviators were withheld pending notifications of their families.
UNITED STATES
Shooter’s sister arrested
The sister of avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof, who was sentenced to die for the 2015 massacre at a historic South Carolina black church, was arrested on Wednesday for carrying weapons at a high school, media said. Morgan Roof, 18, was carrying a knife and pepper spray, as well as marijuana, at a school in Columbia, South Carolina, the Post and Courier and other media reported. The arrest came on the morning of a protest walkout by thousands of students nationwide to demand gun law reform. Morgan Roof also alarmed authorities with a racially charged Snapchat post against the walkout, saying in part: “I hope it’s a trap and y’all get shot,” the newspaper and other media said. She was held in custody late on Wednesday on a bond of US$5,000 and ordered not to return to the campus, media said.
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RELATIONS: Cultural spats, such as China’s claims over the origins of kimchi, have soured public opinion in South Korea against Beijing over the past few years Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday met South Korean counterpart Lee Jae-myung, after taking center stage at an Asian summit in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s departure. The talks on the sidelines of the APEC gathering came the final day of Xi’s first trip to South Korea in more than a decade, and a day after his meeting with the Canadian prime minister that was a reset of the nations’ damaged ties. Trump had flown to South Korea for the summit, but promptly jetted home on Thursday after sealing a trade war pause with Xi, with the two
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