INDIA
Heat deaths draw warnings
At least 34 people have died in the past two days as a large swath of the northern state Uttar Pradesh swelters under severe heat, officials said yesterday, prompting doctors to advise people older than 60 to stay indoors during the daytime. The dead were all older than 60 and had pre-existing health conditions that might have been exacerbated by the intense heat. The fatalities occurred in Ballia District. Twenty-three deaths were reported on Thursday and 11 died on Friday, Ballia Chief Medical Officer Jayant Kumar said. Ballia reported a maximum temperature of 42.2°C on Friday, which is 4.7°C above normal, India Meteorological Department data showed.
UGANDA
US imposes curbs over law
Washington on Friday said it is imposing visa restrictions for Ugandans accused of “undermining the democratic process” after the enactment of an anti-gay law. A statement from the US Department of State did not name any targeted individuals, but said the US would consider other possible actions “to promote accountability for Ugandan officials and other individuals responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the democratic process in Uganda, abusing human rights, including those of LGBTQI+ persons, or engaging in corrupt practices.” The law adopted last month punishes homosexuality, including with the death penalty in some cases.
UNITED STATES
Trucker guilty of massacre
A truck driver was convicted on Friday of massacring 11 Jewish worshipers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, five years ago in the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history. Robert Bowers methodically tracked down his victims at the Tree of Life synagogue, shooting many multiple times from close range as he yelled: “All Jews must die.” The 50-year-old was found guilty of all 63 charges leveled against him, the federal prosecutor’s office said, including hate crimes resulting in murder and attempted murder. A jury is to decide whether Bowers should be executed for the Oct. 27, 2018, mass shooting.
ECUADOR
Pigs confiscated from prison
Security forces have confiscated pigs, fighting cocks and more than two dozen bladed weapons, among other items, from a high-security wing of Bellavista Prison in Santo Domingo, the military said on Friday. Police and operatives of the national prison authority were shown wheeling out two pigs from the prison in images shared by the military in a message posted on Twitter. The authorities also removed 12 fighting cocks, 26 bladed weapons, 16 electrical items and other objects, they said, without saying how the animals ended up there.
UNITED STATES
Biden royally baffles crowd
President Joe Biden on Friday left Americans scratching their heads with an off-the-cuff remark that was, well, royally unusual for a US president: “God save the queen, man.” What he meant, which queen he was referring to, and why he threw in what sounded like the traditional patriotic British cry, no one could immediately tell. Queen Elizabeth II, whom Biden met, died in September last year and was replaced by a king — her son Charles. Biden had just completed an impassioned speech at the National Safer Communities Summit in Connecticut on toughening gun ownership laws when he made the remark from the stage. Later, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton told reporters that Biden had been “commenting to someone in the crowd.”
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
UNCERTAIN TOLLS: Images on social media showed small protests that escalated, with reports of police shooting live rounds as polling stations were targeted Tanzania yesterday was on lockdown with a communications blackout, a day after elections turned into violent chaos with unconfirmed reports of many dead. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan had sought to solidify her position and silence criticism within her party in the virtually uncontested polls, with the main challengers either jailed or disqualified. In the run-up, rights groups condemned a “wave of terror” in the east African nation, which has seen a string of high-profile abductions that ramped up in the final days. A heavy security presence on Wednesday failed to deter hundreds protesting in economic hub Dar es Salaam and elsewhere, some
Flooding in Vietnam has killed at least 10 people this week as the water level of a major river near tourist landmarks reached a 60-year high, authorities said yesterday. Vietnam’s coastal provinces, home to UNESCO world heritage site Hoi An ancient town, have been pummeled by heavy rain since the weekend, with a record of up to 1.7m falling over 24 hours. At least 10 people have been killed, while eight others are missing, the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said. More than 128,000 houses in five central provinces have been inundated, with water 3m deep in some areas. People waded through
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