UNITED STATES
Porn star sues Trump lawyer
Adult film star Stormy Daniels is suing President Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen for defamation after he called into question her claim that she had a sexual encounter with Trump, court documents filed on Monday showed. In the filing in federal court in Los Angeles, Daniels’ attorney said “Cohen meant to convey that Ms Clifford is a liar, someone who should not be trusted, and that her claims about her relationship with Mr Trump is ‘something [that] isn’t true.’” The White House on Monday disputed her claim that she was threatened to keep quiet over her alleged affair with Trump and said he continues to deny the relationship.
GERMANY
Puigdemont to remain jailed
A court in Kiel has kept former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont in custody pending possible extradition to Spain to face “rebellion” charges. He is to “remain in detention for the time being, until a decision is made concerning the extradition procedure,” the regional court said on Monday, one day after he was arrested. The court turned down a request from Puigdemont’s legal team for him to be released pending the extradition decision, which must normally be made within 60 days. A spokeswoman for the Schleswig-Holstein state prosecutor’s office said it would “probably not come this week” ahead of the four-day Easter holiday.
FRANCE
Holocaust survivor murdered
Two people have been charged with the murder of an 85-year-old Jewish woman, who was stabbed and whose body was then set alight in a crime being treated as anti-Semitic, a judicial source said yesterday. Mireille Knoll, who escaped a mass roundup of Jews in Paris during World War II, was found dead in her apartment in eastern Paris on Friday last week by firefighters called to extinguish a blaze. One of the suspects is a neighbor in his 20s whom she knew well and who had visited her that day, Knoll’s son said. A police source said he had convictions for rape and sexual assault. The second suspect, aged 21, has a history of violent robbery. A silent march is to take place today in Paris in memory of the victim.
ARGENTINA
Families honor war dead
Relatives of 90 soldiers killed in the 1982 Falklands War on Monday paid tribute to them at their graves for the first time, after the previously nameless remains were identified last year by the International Committee of the Red Cross via DNA testing. The soldiers were among 121 who, since the war, had been interred in graves labeled “no name.” Parents, siblings and other relatives traveled overnight on Sunday to the islands and returned the same day under a diplomatic accord with Britain. “Now I know where he is. I could talk to him. I feel him close,” said Dalal Massad, mother of Daniel Massad, who died on June 11, 1982.
UNITED STATES
Murder streamer convicted
A jury on Monday convicted a Michigan man of first-degree felony murder after he was accused of breaking into a home and shooting a woman while streaming the attack on Facebook Live. Anthony Gelia, 20, was also found guilty of first-degree home invasion and a felony firearms charge stemming from the November 2016 killing of 26-year-old Brittany Southwell. Local news reports said Gelia is scheduled to be sentenced on May 9.
NEW ZEALAND
Drone nearly hits plane
Air New Zealand yesterday said that a drone came within meters of a flight descending into Auckland Airport from Tokyo on Sunday, putting the safety of 278 passengers and crew at risk in the second such incident this month. It said the pilots spotted the drone about 5m from their Boeing 777-200 at a point in their descent when it was impossible to take evasive action. The drone passed so close that the crew worried it had been sucked into an engine, the company said. The airline is now calling for prison terms for drone operators who endanger lives. Under current regulations, drone operators who breach aviation rules can be fined up to NZ$5,000 (US$3,600).
INDONESIA
Ex-governor loses appeal
The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by the Christian ex-governor of Jakarta to review his conviction for insulting Islam, a court spokesman said on Monday, in May last year after a doctored and incorrectly subtitled video spread on social media that appeared to show him insulting the Koran. “All the reasons for the appeal put forward by Ahok’s team were rejected by the judge,” court spokesman Suhadi said.
VIETNAM
Activist singer detained
Singer and activist Do Nguyen Mai Khoi, an outspoken campaigner for free speech, was detained in Hanoi yesterday after flying home from Europe, her Australian husband, Benjamin Swanton, said. “When Mai Khoi landed at Noi Bai airport, at 9:15 am this morning, she texted me to say: ‘Love, I just landed’,” he posted on her Facebook page. “At 9:39 am, she texted another message: ‘Detained.’” Swanton wrote. He told reporters that he had not been able to contact her since.
PAKISTAN
Arrests over revenge rape
Police have arrested 10 men for ordering the rape of a woman as revenge for a rape allegedly committed by her brother, officials said yesterday. The incident happened on March 20 in Toba Tek Singh in Punjab Province. “A boy named Waseem was caught in the act with a 16-year old girl and the whole neighborhood gathered demanding to kill the boy,” a local police official said. “The boy’s family then gave the girl’s family the option of raping any woman in their family,” he said. They chose a 40-year-old woman, who was then raped by the girl’s brother. The two families then drafted a written agreement about the “settlement” stating that they would forget the incident and hold no grudges.
BANGLADESH
Man held for faking murder
Police have detained a man who faked his murder on social media — using red fruit juice as imitation blood — to avoid paying out US$1,800 on a cricket bet, a senior officer said yesterday. Adel Shikder “hired a film make-up artist who is an occasional videographer to film his ‘murder’ after he lost a bet … on the Nidahas trophy final between Bangladesh and India” on March 18, senior Dhaka police official Kamruzzaman Sardar said. Shikder sent the film anonymously to the person to whom he lost the bet. The video was shared about 10,000 times within days, prompting a police hunt for his body. Shikder was arrested on Sunday, police said. “I did it so that he did not seek any money from me. I did not realize it would cause all this,” Shikder said when paraded before television cameras.
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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