CAMBODIA
Crocodiles attack man
About 40 crocodiles on Friday killed a Cambodian man after he fell into their enclosure on his family’s reptile farm, police said. Luan Nam, 72, was trying to move a crocodile out of a cage where it had laid eggs when it grabbed the stick he was using as a goad and pulled him in. The main group of reptiles then set about him, tearing his body to pieces and leaving the concrete enclosure at the farm in Siem Reap awash with blood. “While he was chasing a crocodile out of an egg-laying cage, the crocodile attacked the stick, causing him to fall into the enclosure,” said Mey Savry, police chief of a Siem Reap commune.
INDONESIA
Rebels threaten pilot’s death
Rebels in Indonesia’s Papua region threatened to shoot a New Zealand pilot they took hostage in February if countries do not comply with their demand to start independence talks within two months, a new video released by the group on Friday showed. Guerrilla fighters in Papua’s central highlands, who want to free Papua from Indonesia, kidnapped Phillip Mehrtens after he landed a commercial plane in the mountainous area of Nduga. In the video, Mehrtens is seen talking to the camera, saying the separatists want countries other than Indonesia to engage in dialogue on Papuan independence. “If it does not happen within two months then they say they will shoot me,” he says in the video, which was verified.
UNITED STATES
Bear nabs 60 cupcakes
A hungry black bear barged into the garage of a Connecticut bakery, scared several employees and helped itself to 60 cupcakes before ambling away. Workers at Taste by Spellbound in the town of Avon were loading cakes into a van for delivery on Wednesday when the bear showed up. Bakery owner Miriam Stephens wrote on Instagram that she heard employee Maureen Williams “screaming bloody murder” and yelling that there was a bear in the garage. Williams told TV station WTNH that she shouted to scare the bear off, but it retreated and came back three times. Surveillance footage shows the bear dragging a container of cupcakes from the garage into the parking lot. A baker finally got the bear to leave by honking a car horn, Williams said.
UNITED STATES
Paxton faces impeachment
The Republican-led Texas House of Representatives was yesterday set to hold historic impeachment proceedings against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as the scandal-plagued Republican called on supporters “to peacefully come let their voices be heard at the Capitol tomorrow” to protest a vote that could lead to his ouster. The House scheduled an afternoon start for debate on whether to impeach and suspend Paxton from office over allegations of bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust — just some of the accusations that have trailed Texas’ top lawyer for most of his three terms. Paxton, 60, has called the impeachment proceedings “political theater” based on “hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims.”
STANDING HEAD
Debt talks over soon: Biden
President Joe Biden on Friday said that Democratic and Republican negotiators were on the verge of resolving a debt ceiling standoff, as the deadline for a potentially catastrophic US default was pushed back to June 5. “It’s very close and I’m optimistic,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “I’m hopeful we’ll know by tonight whether we’re going to be able to have a deal.”
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
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