CAMBODIA
Hun Sen warns foreigners
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday said that he would not tolerate foreigners who threaten the country’s peace, days after the jailing of an opposition figure roused international condemnation. Kem Sokha, cofounder of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, was last week sentenced to 27 years in prison for treason. He was accused of hatching a plot in collusion with international entities to overthrow the government. The UN and the EU condemned the ruling, with Washington calling it a “miscarriage of justice” based on a “fabricated conspiracy.” Hun Sen warned foreigners against any measures that could return the nation to civil war “under the pretext of democracy and human rights.” He then claimed unnamed nations backed a coup against former leader Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970 that plunged the nation into a civil war.
MAURITANIA
Four prisoners escape
Four prisoners on Sunday night escaped the central prison in the capital, Nouakchott, after an exchange of gunfire in which two national guards were killed, the Ministry of the Interior said. “The National Guard has tightened its control over the prison and immediately started tracking down the fugitives in order to arrest them as soon as possible,” the ministry said in a statement published by the official news agency early yesterday. Two other guards were wounded, it said. The identities of the escaped prisoners were not given. The escape took place at 9pm on Sunday, the ministry said, asking people to report any information that might help in arresting the fugitives. A military official speaking on condition of anonymity said two of the prisoners had been sentenced to death, while the other two were awaiting trial as members of a terror group.
IRAN
Six sentenced to death
A court “has sentenced six members of the Harakat al-Nidal terrorist group to death” in Ahvaz, capital of Khuzestan Province, the judiciary’s Mizan Online Web site said. They were found guilty of “armed operations” between 2017 and 2019 that killed four people, including a soldier and two members of the Basij paramilitary force, the report said. The six are Ali Mojadam, Mohammad Reza Moghadam, Moein Khanfari, Habib Deris, Adnan Ghobishavi and Salem Mousavi. Mizan Online said they had “carried out the orders of their European leaders such as Habib Nabgan and Habibullah (Habib) Chaab.” Chaab is an Iranian-Swedish dissident who vanished in Turkey during a 2020 visit and is now on trial in Iran. Tehran has also accused Harakat al-Nidal of “cooperation with other terrorist groups” in a 2018 attack on a military parade in Ahvaz that authorities said killed 25 and wounded almost 250.
PAKISTAN
Khan tries to block arrest
Former prime minister Imran Khan is looking to suspend an arrest warrant against him after police officials attempted to arrest him a day earlier. Khan yesterday morning filed an application to courts in Lahore and Islamabad to suspend the arrest warrant, said Khan’s lawyer, Azhar Siddiqui. The police team did not find Khan at his residence, and a party official assured them that the leader would comply with the legal process, Islamabad police spokesman Taqi Jawad said in a text message. Khan has seen multiple legal cases start against him in the past year and also been banned from television. The arrest warrant was issued last week after Khan did not appear multiple times in a hearing for a complaint over his failure to declare his assets.
TUNISIA
Saied rejects racism claims
The president on Sunday denounced racism and pointed to possible legal consequences for perpetrators 10 days after announcing a crackdown on illegal migration using language the African Union condemned as “racialized hate speech.” During a statement on Feb. 21 telling security forces to expel all illegal immigrants, President Kais Saied called migration a conspiracy to change the country’s demographics by making it more African and less Arab. In Sunday’s statement he described the accusations of racism as a campaign against the country “from known sources,” without elaborating. He added that Tunisia was honored to be an African country and announced a relaxation of visa rules for African citizens.
MEXICO
Four Americans missing
Four Americans have been kidnapped after shooters opened fire on their vehicle in Matamoros, the FBI said on Sunday. The four had entered the city, across from Brownsville, Texas, on Friday, traveling in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates. The FBI’s San Antonio, Texas, office said the vehicle came under fire shortly after crossing the border. “All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men,” the office said. The FBI is offering a US$50,000 reward for the return of the captives and the arrest of the culprits.
RUSSIA
Moscow to ease visa rules
The government is working on easing visa procedures for six countries, including India, Syria and Indonesia, the state-run TASS news agency cited Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Evgeny Ivanov as saying on Sunday. “In addition to India [procedures simplification] ... is being worked out with Angola, Vietnam, Indonesia, Syria and Philippines,” Ivanov said. Earlier, he said that Russia is also preparing intergovernmental agreements on visa-free trips with 11 countries, including Barbados, Haiti, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Trinidad and Zambia, TASS reported. Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, Moscow has turned to China, India and African nations, trying to seek closer ties there.
PAKISTAN
Suicide bomber kills nine
A suicide bomber yesterday killed nine police officers and wounded 16 people in an attack on their truck in southwestern Pakistan, officials said. “The suicide bomber was riding a motorbike and hit the truck from behind,” senior police official Abdul Hai Aamir said. The incident took place in Dhadar, the main town of Kachhi District in central Balochistan Province. Kachhi Police Chief Mehmood Notezai said the police were returning from a week-long cattle show where they had been providing security.
MEXICO
Woman dies during ritual
A woman performing in the picturesque Danz de los Voladores ritual died after falling from the 30m high pole, authorities in Puebla state confirmed on Sunday. The Huauchinango municipal government said it was canceling the remaining festivities in a sign of mourning. The performers were apparently from a troupe of mainly female voladores. They had been performing at the city’s Festival of Flowers when the accident occurred on Saturday night. The cause of the accident is under investigation. The voladores, or flyers, are generally four performers who climb the pole and tie themselves to ropes twisted around it, before leaping outward and descending in circles as the rope unwinds.
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
UPGRADED ALERT: The risk inside DR Congo is now considered ‘very high,’ while neighboring countries face a ‘high’ threat as the outbreak continues, the WHO said Ebola is spreading faster than responders can track it in eastern Congo, where health workers managed to follow up with barely one in five identified contacts in a single day. Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) reported 83 confirmed infections, 746 suspected cases and 1,603 identified contacts as of Thursday, but health workers were able to follow up on only 342 contacts that day — about 21 percent of the total under monitoring — data released by the DR Congo Ministry of Public Health on Friday showed. The figures suggest the response is falling behind the outbreak itself,
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