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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
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