UNITED STATES
Man charged over extortion
Federal prosecutors on Friday charged Devonere Johnson, whose arrest triggered a violent protest in Madison, Wisconsin. Johnson was charged with extorting local businesses after being arrested on Tuesday after he walked into Cooper’s Tavern near the state Capitol building with a megaphone and a bat. The arrest sparked a protest that night during which people tore down two statues and allegedly assaulted Wisconsin Senator Tim Carpenter. Johnson faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted on two counts of extortion. According to court documents, Johnson and an unnamed man had been trying to extort business owners for beer, food and money for two days before Johnson was arrested. FBI Agent Beth Boxwell wrote in an affidavit that the owner of Cooper’s Tavern came up from the bar’s basement on Monday to find Johnson and another man unidentified in the affidavit sitting at a table. The owner told him that he supports the Black Lives Matter movement, to which Johnson replied, according to court documents: “What have you done locally?” He said he would start breaking windows if he did not get money. The owner told police he was afraid that protesters would target his business because he did not give Johnson what he wanted. Johnson allegedly returned twice to the tavern on Tuesday, at one point joined by two other men. He shouted allegations of racism through a megaphone and swung a bat, according to the affidavit. “Just give us some free food and beer and we can end this now,” Johnson said, according to the affidavit. “You don’t want 600 people to come here and destroy your business and burn it down. The cops are on our side. You notice that when you call them, nothing happens to us.”
UNITED STATES
Chinese spy convicted
A federal judge on Friday convicted a Chinese national of economic espionage, stealing trade secrets and engaging in a conspiracy for the benefit of his country’s government. District Judge Edward Davila found Zhang Hao (張浩), 41, guilty of the three counts after a four-day trial. The decision comes five years after Zhang was indicted on charges of conspiring to steal technology from two companies shortly after graduating from the University of Southern California. The trade secrets were heisted from Zhang’s former employer, Skyworks Solutions in Woburn, Massachusetts, and Avago Technologies, a San Jose, California, company later acquired by chipmaker Broadcom. The verdict “is an important step in holding accountable an individual who robbed his US employer of trade secrets and sought to replicate the company’s technology and replace its market share,” Department of Justice assistant attorney general for national security John Demers said.
BANGLADESH
Police kill four Rohingya
Four suspected members of a Rohingya group allegedly involved in kidnapping for ransom were killed in a gunfight with police near refugee camps where refugees from Myanmar live, officials said. The gunfight took place on Friday when a team of security officials was searching for the gang leader in a forest near the Rohingya camps at Cox’s Bazar, Police Inspector Pradeep Kumar Das said. Another inspector, Morzina Akhter, said that the suspects opened fire at police, sparking the gunfight that led to their deaths. According to authorities and local media reports, the gang led by Abdul Hakim has kidnapped many locals for ransom and killed those whose families failed to pay.
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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