IRAN
Filmmakers arrested
Authorities arrested award-winning filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof and his colleague Mostafa Aleahmad for “inciting unrest” following protests related to the deadly collapse of a building in May, state media reported on Friday. “In the midst of the heart-breaking incident in Abadan’s Metropol, [the filmmakers] were involved in inciting unrest and disrupting the psychological security of society,” IRNA said. The 10-story Metropol building, which was under construction in southwestern Khuzestan Province, collapsed on May 23, killing 43 people and sparking angry protests in solidarity with victims’ families. A group of filmmakers led by Rasoulof published an open letter calling on the security forces to “lay down their arms” in the face of outrage over the “corruption, theft, inefficiency and repression” surrounding the Abadan collapse.
FRANCE
Blaze burns 600 hectares
More than 900 firefighters backed by aircraft were on Friday deployed to battle a massive blaze in the southern Gard region that burned 600 hectares overnight. “This fire is far from being done. There are fronts in hard-to-reach areas that we haven’t tackled and that are advancing freely,” said Eric Agrinier, a member of the fire service. “It’s going to be a feat of endurance,” he added later, warning that the blaze might not be brought under control until today due to unfavorable weather. Working into the night after the blaze began late Thursday, firefighters set backfires to protect inhabited areas. “We burn some parts [of the forest] so when the fire spreads it reaches an already burned zone and slows down,” another firefighter said.
UNITED STATES
California gun law challenged
The publisher of a youth shooting magazine and several gun-rights groups on Friday filed a lawsuit challenging a newly enacted California law banning the marketing of guns to minors by manufacturers and others in the firearms industry. In the lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles, the publisher of Junior Shooters and groups including the Second Amendment Foundation argued that the law contravened their freedom of speech guaranteed in the US constitution’s First Amendment. California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said in a statement that it would “take any and all action under the law to defend California’s commonsense gun laws.” California Governor Gavin Newsom last week signed the measure into law, citing the need for new laws “as the [US] Supreme Court rolls back important gun safety protections.”
SPAIN
Two injured in bull run
The third bull run of Pamplona’s San Fermin Festival ended yesterday with the event’s first gorings of the year. Two men were injured in the leg by bull horns, said Estrella Petrina, a local hospital spokeswoman. Seven people needed to be treated at the hospital following yesterday’s running of the bulls. Thousands of runners, most wearing traditional white shirts, scampered to avoid the charging animals. Many ended up piled on top of each other in the narrow cobblestone streets of the course. The increasingly criticized yet popular festival, which was made known to the English-speaking world through Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, draws tens of thousands of visitors from around the world each year. Yesterday’s bull run was the third of eight scheduled this year. The six bulls that run each morning are killed in bullfights by professional bullfighters later in the day.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
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