IRAQ
Sectarian bloodshed kills 52
A wave of violence on Friday killed 52 people, most of whom were kidnapped and shot dead with their corpses abandoned, in scenes harking back to the country’s sectarian war. The killings come amid a surge in violence that has left more than 600 people dead this month, including several who were snatched from their homes, only for their bodies to be found later. Violence on Friday struck in Baghdad and mostly Sunni Arab parts of the north and west, with shootings and bombings targeting civilians, local officials, security forces and even a brothel.
MALI
Rebels end ceasefire
Separatist Tuareg rebels said on Friday they were ending a five-month-old ceasefire with the government and taking up arms following violence in the northern city of Kidal. The declaration came a day after troops clashed with stone-throwing protesters who blocked a visit by the prime minister to the city, a northern rebel stronghold. Several demonstrators were wounded, but there were conflicting accounts of how the incident started.
SPAIN
Child rapist, killer freed
A court on Friday ordered the immediate release of a man who raped and killed three children, cutting his prison time by 10 years in line with a European human rights ruling. The killer, Miguel Ricart, was the latest convict to benefit from an Oct. 21 ruling by the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights. The Strasbourg court said the country had acted illegally by retroactively cutting short the years of remission that an ETA prisoner had earned from good behavior. Ricart raped and killed young girls Miriam, Toni and Desiree in 1992 in the eastern Valencia region, a crime that shocked the country. He was condemned to 170 years in jail in 1997, although he actually faced a maximum of 30 years.
ITALY
Erotic frescoes brought to life
Naked artists posing as cavorting nymphs and satyrs star in a new exhibition that opened this week that features adapted images of some of the eye-catching erotic frescoes from the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. Among images that leave little to the imagination are a man having sex with a goat, a transsexual posing and a naked woman straddling a supine Roman god. “Even today when we talk about erotic works, it is difficult to show them, but as a politically incorrect museum, we thought that it was really interesting,” said Antonio Manfredi, director of the Contemporary Art Museum in Casoria and himself a model in one work. Manfredi said the culture ministry had attempted to “censor” the exhibition by initially giving the artists permission to photograph the frescoes, but then withdrawing approval when their intent became clear.
UNITED KINGDOM
No Lawson drug use: Saatchi
Charles Saatchi says he has no knowledge of his ex-wife Nigella Lawson ever taking drugs — days after the release of an e-mail in which he referred to the celebrity chef as drug-addled. Saatchi testified on Friday at the fraud trial of two former personal assistants, who are accused of spending the former couple’s money on luxury goods. They deny wrongdoing. When asked if he believed allegations Lawson was so high she allowed the assistants to spend freely, Saatchi told the court “not for a second.” The art baron said it was a “terrible mistake” that an e-mail he had sent Lawson claiming she was on drugs was made public in court. Saatchi says he has “never, never seen any evidence of Nigella taking any drug whatsoever.”
CANADA
Toronto mayor to host show
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his brother say they will host an online show so they can take their message straight to “Ford Nation,” the term they use for the embattled mayor’s conservative suburban supporters. Doug Ford, a city councilor, told reporters on Friday that the show is meant to “get their message out and not have that message be twisted by the media.” After the mayor admitted to smoking crack in a “drunken stupor” and refused to resign, Toronto’s city council stripped him of most of his powers. The new online show follows last week’s airing of a single episode of a TV talk show hosted by the Fords that premiered on Sun News Network before it was cancelled. Network executives said Ford Nation was the highest-rated program ever on the two-year-old cable channel, but said it was too costly to make. Doug Ford said the new self-funded online series, also to be called Ford Nation, will be uploaded to YouTube before Christmas. “Numerous people have approached us around the world about doing a show and since technology has changed, you can get your message out easily to a larger audience on your own,” Doug Ford said.
UNITED STATES
Former KKK man charged
A former leader of the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan was arrested and charged with burning a cross in a black neighborhood in 2009, officials said on Friday. Steven Dinkle, 28, who was an “exalted cyclops,” the name given to leaders of the KKK, was charged in a five-count indictment on Wednesday over the burning of the large cross in the city of Ozark in the southern state of Alabama and with obstruction of justice, according to a statement. His mother, Pamela Morris, 45, the former secretary of the KKK chapter, was arrested on Nov. 21 for committing perjury before the grand jury investigating the cross burning. The indictment alleges Dinkle “conspired with another person to burn a cross in an African-American neighborhood to threaten and intimidate residents of that neighborhood and thereby interfere with their federally protected housing rights.” He is accused of having constructed a 1.8m cross, which he wrapped in jeans and a towel, transporting it to the entrance of the neighborhood, pouring fuel on it, sticking it in the ground and lighting it on fire. Dinkle is accused of then lying to investigators by saying he had quit the KKK before the cross burning, providing a false alibi and denying he knew an individual who was his superior in the KKK. Dinkle is charged with conspiracy to violate housing rights, criminal interference with the right to fair housing, using fire to commit a federal felony and two counts of obstruction of justice. If convicted on all counts, Dinkle faces up to 55 years in prison and US$1 million in fines.
PERU
Man arrested for child porn
Police said they have arrested a 29-year-old man on child pornography charges for using the Internet to lure about 500 kids into online sex. Arturo Dodero Tello, who was sought in several countries, “used the Internet and an e-mail he set up in Argentina to pose as a minor to seek friendship with boy, girl and teen victims,” General Cesar Cortijo said. “We have put behind bars the Spanish-speaking world’s worst known offender of minors unable to defend themselves,” Cortijo said after the suspect’s arrest on Thursday in Lima. His victims were located in Argentina, Peru, Chile, Spain and Ukraine, authorities said.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
‘LIMITING MYSELF’: New Zealand’s foreign minister said that the omments by Phil Goff were ‘disappointing’ and made the diplomat’s position in the UK ‘untenable’ New Zealand’s most senior envoy to the UK has lost his job over remarks he made about US President Donald Trump at an event in London this week, New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said yesterday. Phil Goff, who is New Zealand’s High Commissioner to the UK, made the comments at an event held by international affairs think tank Chatham House in London on Tuesday. Goff asked a question from the audience of the guest speaker, Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen, in which he said he had been re-reading a famous speech by former British prime minister Winston
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