UNITED STATES
Officer guilty in Wright death
The jury in the manslaughter trial of former Minnesota police officer Kim Potter, who shot dead 20-year-old Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in April, has found her guilty. The former police officer, who is white, had said that she made a tragic mistake when she grabbed her gun, instead of her Taser, and shot Wright, who was black, in Brooklyn Center. However, the jury found Potter guilty of first-degree and second-degree manslaughter. Wright was killed while the trial was held of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who was accused and later convicted of murdering George Floyd in May last year, in nearby Minneapolis.
BANGLADESH
Ferry fire kills 30 people
At least 30 passengers have been killed and many injured in a massive fire that swept through a ferry on the southern Sugandha River, fire services said yesterday. The blaze broke out at about 3am on the MV Avijan-10. Fire officer Fazlul Haque said rescuers have so far recovered 30 bodies and rescued 72 injured passengers. He said the rescue mission is ongoing and the casualties are likely to go up, but did not comment on what caused the fire. Ferry disasters are common and are often blamed on overcrowding and lax rules in Bangladesh, which is crisscrossed by about 130 rivers.
MYANMAR
No earlier vote: junta head
Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing said there are plans to hold a general election in August 2023, sticking to the military government’s timeline and defying pressure from the US to hold polls earlier. “Depending on state stability and peace, we are making our utmost effort to hold a multi-party general election on August 2023,” Min Aung Hlaing told a televised meeting with military university staff in Yangon. The junta leader’s comments come after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Washington was exploring additional ways, including sanctions, to pressure the military regime to bring back democracy after a February coup.
CAMBODIA
Hun Sen’s son ‘future PM’
The ruling party voted to endorse Prime Minister Hun Sen’s eldest son as “future prime minister,” but did not specify a timeframe for when he might succeed his father, who has been in power for 36 years. A statement from the Cambodia People’s Party said its central committee unanimously endorsed Hun Manet, 44. Hun Sen earlier this month said he would support his son as his successor, but did not say when he would retire. Cambodia has had a one-party government since 2018 elections, after a broad crackdown that led to the dissolution of the main opposition party.
NIGERIA
Five killed near air base
At least five people were on Thursday killed and more than a dozen injured after several explosions near an air force base in Maiduguri town, ahead of a visit by President Muhammadu Buhari, residents and a hospital source said. Maiduguri is the capital of the northeastern state of Borno, the epicenter of a 12-year insurgency. Four people were killed in the town’s Gomari Ayafe area, a few hundred meters from the air force base, residents said. Buhari landed at the base less than an hour after explosions were heard in neighborhoods near the base.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
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