IRAN
Journalist’s death ordered
A journalist whose online work helped inspire nationwide economic protests in 2017 was yesterday sentenced to death. Ruhollah Zam had run a Web site called AmadNews that posted embarrassing videos and information about Iranian officials. “The court has considered 13 counts of charges together as instances of ‘corruption on earth’ and therefore passed the death sentence,” judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced the arrest of Zam in October last year, describing him as a “counter-revolutionary” who was “directed by France’s intelligence service.” “Corruption on earth” is one of the most serious offenses under Iranian law.
GERMANY
Pedophile ring may be huge
Authorities on Monday said that they have evidence that tens of thousands of people might have been involved with an online child sex abuse network uncovered last year. Allegations against members of the pedophile ring include possession and distribution of child sex abuse images, and serious abuse, said Peter Biesenbach, minister of justice of North Rhine-Westphalia state. “I didn’t expect, not in the slightest, the extent of child abuse on the net,” Biesenbach told reporters, adding that specialist investigators have so far counted “more than — and I hope you’re sitting down — 30,000 unknown suspected perpetrators.” Officials later added that members of the network might have used several pseudonyms, reducing the actual number of suspects. Seventy-two suspects from across Germany have been identified. Ten people have been arrested and eight people have been indicted.
FRANCE
Ex-PM and wife sentenced
Former prime minister Francois Fillon and his wife, Penelope Fillon, were on Monday found guilty of embezzling more than 1 million euros (US$1.12 million) in a scandal over a fake advisory job that left his ambitions of becoming president in tatters. Francois Fillon was given a five-year jail term, of which three are suspended. His wife got a three-year suspended prison sentence. Francois Fillon “contributed to erosion of the trust that citizens place in those they elect,” presiding judge Nathalie Gavarino said. Investigators have said that Penelope Fillon never set foot in the National Assembly despite being paid as a full-time aide. She had no timetable, no work computer, mobile phone or e-mail address linked to the job, but her salary averaged US$140,000 a year for a time.
UNITED KINGDOM
Leicester in lockdown
A stringent lockdown has been imposed on the city of Leicester after a local flare-up of COVID-19 just as Prime Minister Boris Johnson attempts to nudge the country back to normality. The UK has been one of the world’s worst-hit areas, with more than 54,000 suspected deaths, although infections have been waning in the past few weeks. However, in Leicester, in the eastern Midlands of England, the seven-day infection rate was 135 cases per 100,000 people, three times higher than the next highest city. Leicester accounted for 10 percent of all positive cases in England in the past week, the government said. “We will be bringing forward a legal change very shortly, in the next couple of days, because some of the measures that we’ve unfortunately had to take in Leicester will require a legal underpinning,” British Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock told Sky.
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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