GERMANY
Merkel receives top honors
Former chancellor Angela Merkel was yesterday to be decorated with the nation’s highest possible honor in recognition of her near-record 16 years at the helm. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was to bestow the Order of Merit for special achievement on the four-term chancellor, making her only the third former leader to receive that distinction. The other two were Konrad Adenauer, West Germany’s first leader, and Helmut Kohl, who led Germany to reunification. Merkel, 68, was the first woman to lead Germany and the first chancellor who grew up behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany. She stepped down in December 2021 with a well-regarded record of leading Europe’s biggest economy through a series of crises, including the global financial crisis, the eurozone debt crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Merkel’s legacy has attracted increasingly critical scrutiny since her departure, largely because of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She has staunchly defended her diplomatic efforts, saying that a much-criticized 2015 peace deal for eastern Ukraine bought Kyiv precious time.
UAE
Group frees more prisoners
A Saudi Arabian-led military coalition yesterday started freeing 104 more prisoners captured in Yemen’s war, a unilateral release that followed an organized prisoner swap amid renewed diplomatic efforts to halt the conflict. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it flew 48 detainees from Saudi Arabia’s Abha International Airport heading to Sana’a, which has been held for years by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. More flights with prisoners were planned for later yesterday. A UN-brokered deal saw the release of more than 700 detained Houthis, and more than 180 other prisoners, including Saudi and Sudanese troops fighting with the Saudi-led coalition. That three-day operation was overseen by the Red Cross and ended on Sunday.
RUSSIA
Activist gets 25 years
A court in Moscow yesterday convicted an opposition activist on charges of treason and denigrating the military, and sentenced him to 25 years in prison. Vladimir Kara-Murza, Jr, who twice survived poisonings he blamed on the Kremlin, has been behind bars since his arrest a year ago. He has rejected the charges against him as political and likened the judicial proceedings against him to the show trials during Josef Stalin’s rule. The charges against Kara-Murza stem from his March 15 speech to the Arizona House of Representatives in which he denounced Russian military action in Ukraine. Investigators added the treason charges while he was in custody.
UNITED STATES
Jazz great dies at 92
Ahmad Jamal, a towering and influential jazz pianist, composer and band leader whose career spanned more than seven decades, died on Sunday at 92. Jamal’s widow, Laura Hess-Hey, confirmed his death, the Washington Post reported, while his daughter Sumayah Jamal told the New York Times the cause was prostate cancer. Music news outlets in France and Britain also reported his death. Jamal was friends with music greats such as Miles Davis, and influenced his work and that of other musicians, including the pianist McCoy Tyner. Born Frederick Russell Jones in Pittsburgh, Jamal won myriad awards over the course of his career, including France’s prestigious Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2007, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
BORDER SERVICES: With the US-funded International Rescue Committee telling clinics to shut by tomorrow, Burmese refugees face sudden discharge from Thai hospitals Healthcare centers serving tens of thousands of refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border have been ordered shut after US President Donald Trump froze most foreign aid last week, forcing Thai officials to transport the sickest patients to other facilities. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which funds the clinics with US support, told the facilities to shut by tomorrow, a local official and two camp committee members said. The IRC did not respond to a request for comment. Trump last week paused development assistance from the US Agency for International Development for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. The freeze has thrown
TESTING BAN: Satellite photos show a facility in the Chinese city of Mianyang that could aid nuclear weapons design and power generation, a US researcher said China appears to be building a large laser-ignited fusion research center in the southwestern city of Mianyang, experts at two analytical organizations said, a development that could aid nuclear weapons design and work exploring power generation. Satellite photos show four outlying “arms” that would house laser bays, and a central experiment bay that would hold a target chamber containing hydrogen isotopes the powerful lasers would fuse together, producing energy, said Decker Eveleth, a researcher at US-based independent research organization CNA Corp. It is a similar layout to the US$3.5 billion US National Ignition Facility (NIF) in northern California, which in 2022 generated
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