KENYA
Pastor in court over deaths
A high-profile pastor on Friday appeared in court suspected of links to the murder of dozens of people found in mass graves that has been dubbed the “Shakahola forest massacre.” Ezekiel Odero, the head of the New Life Prayer Centre and Church, was arrested on Thursday in the coastal town of Malindi and is accused of the “mass killing” of his followers. It followed the arrest of Paul Mackenzie Nthenge, a cult leader accused of the deaths of dozens of his followers who were allegedly ordered to starve themselves to death to find God. Cabinet Secretary of Interior and National Administration Kithure Kindiki, making his second visit to the crime scene on Friday, announced a shakeup in the local police and security services with the transfer of top bosses, but gave no reasons. Prosecutors said Odero is suspected of crimes including murder, aiding suicide, abduction, radicalization, crimes against humanity, child cruelty, fraud and money laundering. The wealthy televangelist was arraigned in a magistrate’s court in the port city of Mombasa, where prosecutors asked for him to be detained for another 30 days to enable police to complete their investigations. The death toll now stands at 109, a police source said. More than half the victims are children, sources close to the investigation said.
THE NETHERLANDS
Semen donor banned
Dutch judges on Friday ordered a man suspected of fathering more than 550 children through sperm donations to stop donating. The man, identified in Dutch media only as “Jonathan M,” 41, was dragged to court by a foundation protecting the rights of donor children and the mother of one of the children allegedly fathered from his sperm. Dutch clinical guidelines say a donor should not father more than 25 children in 12 families, but judges said the man had helped produce between 550 and 600 children since he started as a sperm donor in 2007. Should he continue with his donations, Jonathan M would face a 100,000 euro (US$111,285) fine for every transgression, as well as additional fines, the judge ordered. “The donor deliberately misinformed prospective parents about the number of children he had already fathered in the past,” the Hague District Court said in a separate statement. “All these parents are now confronted with the fact that the children in their family are part of a huge kinship network, with hundreds of half-siblings, which they did not choose,” it said.
SPAIN
Legends surprise restaurant
Staff at a Barcelona restaurant were left amazed when a mysterious last-minute booking turned out to be for former US president Barack Obama, along with film director Steven Spielberg and singer Bruce Springsteen. After dining on Thursday evening at the Palace Hotel’s Amar restaurant, the trio posed for a photograph with employees. The picture was posted on Instagram by staff member Pol Perello and captioned: “Pleasures that this job brings you!!” Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, along with Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw, were in town for Springsteen’s Friday night concert at Barcelona’s Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys. Amar chef Rafa Zafra said their reservation was made only hours beforehand at the recommendation of famed Spanish-American chef Jose Andres. “The security people told us to please not ask them for photos, but just before leaving, Obama entered the kitchen and told us that this had been one of their best meals and if they could take a photo with the whole team,” Zafra told Cadena SER.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
RSS