EL SALVADOR
Police to be tried for murder
Three police officers are to be tried for the murder of a transgender woman who was deported from the US two years ago after failing to prove her life was at risk in the Central American country. The unidentified officers, who all deny the charges, face prison sentences of up to 30 years. Camila Diaz, a 29-year-old sex worker who fled the country following repeated threats on her life from a gang, was killed early last month after she was kidnapped and beaten. Judge Sidney Blanco said in court proceeding on Wednesday that sufficient evidence existed to implicate the police officers for the crime of aggravated homicide. The accused officers on Jan. 31 arrested Diaz for supposedly creating a public nuisance and then forced her into a police vehicle, the attorney general’s office said. Once in the vehicle, Diaz was severely beaten and then thrown out onto a highway, prosecutors said. She died of her injuries in hospital three days later. Diaz had turned herself over to US immigration agents in August 2017 to apply for asylum protection, saying she had received death threats from members of the Salvadorean gang Barrio 18. However, she was deported in November 2017 after her asylum request was rejected.
NETHERLANDS
Mladic appeal postponed
International judges on Wednesday postponed an appeal hearing for former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, 78, against his convictions on charges including genocide because he is to undergo surgery. The hearing had been scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday next week at the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, a court that handles appeals and other cases from the now closed UN war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Mladic was on Nov. 22, 2017, given a life sentence after being convicted of crimes including genocide for leading troops who massacred more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys at the Srebrenica enclave in Bosnia in 1995. He appealed and remains in custody in The Hague. Prosecutors have also appealed to overturn Mladic’s acquittal over a second count of genocide. According to filings released on Wednesday by the residual mechanism, Mladic is to undergo surgery to remove a benign polyp from his colon. Judges did not set a new date for the hearing, but indicated they want to hold it about six weeks after Mladic’s surgery.
POLAND
Chopin competition set
Culture authorities on Monday said that the 18th edition of the international Frederic Chopin piano competition is to take place from Oct. 2 to 23 in Warsaw. Eliminations for the competition, which is famous for launching world careers for its laureates, are to be held from April 17 to 28 in Warsaw and select about 80 pianists who are to compete in the fall. Addressing concerns over the spread of COVID-19, National Frederic Chopin Institute head Artur Szklener said that the eliminations would only be postponed until September if a large number of those who qualified were unable to visit the nation next month. A total of 164 pianists from 33 nations are to perform before a jury at the Chamber Hall of the Warsaw Philharmonic in the qualifications for the fall event. Fans will be able to follow the competition live on www.chopin2020.pl and watch the finals from Oct. 18 to 21 in special fan zones in New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Budapest, Moscow, Jerusalem and Seoul. The winner is to receive a gold medal and 40,000 euros (US$45,248).
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not