ARGENTINA
VP convicted for fraud
Vice President Cristina Fernandez was on Tuesday convicted and sentenced to six years in prison and a lifetime ban from holding public office for a fraud scheme that embezzled US$1 billion through public works projects during her presidency. A three-judge panel found the Peronist leader guilty of fraud, but rejected a charge of running a criminal organization, for which the sentence could have been 12 years in prison. It was the first time a vice president has been convicted of a crime while in office. Fernandez lashed out at the verdict, describing herself as the victim of a “judicial mafia.”
DOMINICA
PM likely to stay on
Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit was expected to remain leader of the eastern Caribbean island after snap general elections on Tuesday that the main opposition party and its supporters boycotted. Twenty-one of 32 seats in the House of Assembly were up for grabs, with several automatically going to Skerrit’s Dominica Labor Party, as the opposition parties did not submit candidates. The remaining nine members are chosen by the assembly or president and two other positions are ex-officio, held by the speaker and attorney general.
HONDURAS
Police crackdown begins
Police on Tuesday moved en masse into poor urban areas to tackle criminal gangs “head on” after a decree by President Xiomara Castro to temporarily suspend certain rights. The 30-day lifting of constitutional guarantees that began on Tuesday allows police to make arrests without warrants in 89 districts of Tegucigalpa, the capital, and 73 districts of San Pedro Sula, the industrial capital. Castro last week declared the lifting of the constitutional rights due to what she called a “national emergency” over gang violence. “We are going to go head on against organized crime,” National Police Director Gustavo Sanchez said.
UNITED STATES
Khashoggi suit dismissed
A federal judge in Washington on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by the fiance of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi against Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, citing President Joe Biden’s grant of immunity. District Judge John Bates suggested he was reluctant to throw out the lawsuit, but had no choice given the Biden administration’s decision. “Despite the court’s uneasiness, then, with both the circumstances of bin Salman’s appointment and the credible allegations of his involvement in Khashoggi’s murder, the United States has informed the court that he is immune,” Bates wrote in the 25-page ruling.
UNITED STATES
Killer robot plan on hold
A plan to equip San Francisco police with killer robots was sent back to the drawing board on Tuesday after city council members said they were having second thoughts. City supervisors last week said officers would be allowed to deploy robots capable of delivering lethal force to deal with dangerous felons and life-threatening situations. Police had welcomed the plan, saying that it would be an option of last resort for tackling violent suspects like mass shooters or suicide bombers, without risk to officers’ lives. However, at a meeting of the board of supervisors on Tuesday that had been set to rubber-stamp the plan, officials said they now had reservations.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant