THAILAND
Chinese scammers handed over
Myanmar yesterday handed 111 Chinese scam center workers to be repatriated through Thailand, the third batch in a major crackdown on the illegal operations. Hundreds of foreigners are expected to be sent home from scam compounds in Myanmar over the coming weeks, with the first two batches already flown out on Thursday and Friday. The compounds are run by criminal gangs and staffed by foreigners, many of whom say they were trafficked and forced to swindle people around the world in protracted Internet scams.
Photo: EPA-EFE / XINHUA news agency
UNITED KINGDOM
Apple ends full encryption
Apple on Friday said it was ending full end-to-end encryption for British customers and iPhone users, following US media reports that the UK government had asked for global data access. “Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection [ADP] in the United Kingdom to new users and current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature,” it said in a statement. ADP means only account holders can view content such as photographs and documents stored online and in the cloud through what is known as end-to-end encryption. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that the UK had issued “a secret government order” that Apple create a “back door” to enable the government to snoop on data uploaded by any Apple user around the world.
Photo: Reuters
GERMANY
Stabbing suspect arrested
Police arrested a suspect in the stabbing on Friday at about 6pm at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial that seriously injured a man two days before a watershed national election. Berlin Police gave no details on the identity of the suspect or his possible motive, but said an investigation was ongoing. The victim “was so seriously injured that he had to be taken by the fire brigade to hospital for emergency treatment,” police spokesman Florian Nath said. The victim was identified as a 30-year-old Spanish man.
Photo: EPA-EFE
UNITED STATES
AP sues White House aides
The Associated Press on Friday sued senior aides to President Donald Trump over a White House decision to restrict the news outlet’s access to the president and other officials for continuing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage. The federal lawsuit alleges that the White House’s decision to bar AP reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One violates the Constitution, including First Amendment protections for free speech, by trying to control the language that it uses to report the news. “The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” the complaint said.
Photo: AP
UNITED STATES
Woman held in romance scam
A woman used online dating apps to lure at least four older men to meet her in person, then drugged them with sedatives and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in a “sinister” romance scheme, FBI officials in Las Vegas said on Friday. Three of the men died, authorities said. She has been charged in one of their deaths. Aurora Phelps, 43, who is in custody in Mexico, faces 21 counts including wire fraud, identity theft and one count of kidnapping resulting in death, Sue Fahami, the acting US attorney for the District of Nevada, told a news conference. “This is a romance scam on steroids,” said Spencer Evans, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas division. One of the victims awoke from a coma after Phelps gave him prescription sedatives over the course of a week, he added.
Photo: AP
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
Ugandan wildlife authorities have reintroduced rhinos into a remote protected area where they were once poached into extinction, an event seen by conservationists as a milestone in efforts to support the recovery of a species threatened by poaching. On Tuesday, two southern white rhinos from a private ranch in the East African country were reintroduced into Kidepo Valley National Park in the country’s northeast. Two more rhinos in metallic crates arrived on Thursday. There have been no rhinos in the park since 1983, the result of poaching. However, a private ranch in central Uganda — the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary — has been
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