RUSSIA
US citizen arrested
The Federal Security Service (FSB) yesterday said that it had arrested an American-Russian woman suspected of treason and raising funds for the Ukrainian army while in the US, state media reported. The FSB in the central Urals city of Yekaterinburg said it had “suppressed the illegal activities” of a 33-year-old woman, a resident of Los Angeles with dual citizenship, and taken her into custody. It said the unnamed woman had been “proactively collecting funds ... which were subsequently used to purchase tactical medical items, equipment, means of destruction and ammunition for the Ukrainian armed forces,” local news agencies reported, citing an FSB statement. The RIA Novosti agency posted a video from the FSB showing hooded officers escorting and handcuffing a woman in a white coat with a white hat pulled down over her eyes. Treason is punishable by up to 20 years in prison in Russia.
HAITI
Moise’s widow charged
A judge in charge of the investigation into the 2021 assassination of former president Jovenel Moise has charged about 50 people, including his widow and a former prime minister, a document leaked to local media showed. The 122-page document from Judge Walther Wesser Voltaire, made public by AyiboPost, said that Moise’s widow, Martine, conspired with former prime minister Claude Joseph to kill the president with the aim of replacing him herself. Jovenel Moise was shot and killed when armed men broke into his Port-au-Prince bedroom on the night of July 7, 2021, a raid that left the former first lady injured. The judge’s order calls for the arrest and trial of those charged. Martine Moise and Joseph did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
INDIA
Farmers reject price offer
Farmer groups rejected a government offer to guarantee minimum prices for some crops traded with no such safeguard, and are expected to resume their protest today. The farmers, who are seeking price guarantees for 23 crops, last week traveled toward New Delhi, demanding that the government fulfill that promise, made at the end of the 2021 protests. After multiple rounds of talks, the federal government offered to guarantee minimum prices on a small number of crops. Growers had temporarily halted their protest to consider the proposal. The nation is keen to reduce its dependence on water-heavy crops such as rice and is encouraging farmers to diversify their crops. Speaking to reporters at the protest site, one of the group leaders said that the share of the crop basket covered by the government’s offer is too small. “The proposal is not in favor of the farmers nor for their benefit,” Jagjit Singh Dallewal said late on Monday evening.
UNITED STATES
Cougar attacks cyclist
A woman suffered injuries to her face and neck after a cougar leapt out and “latched onto” her while she was cycling with a group on a trail in Washington state, authorities said. The incident happened on Saturday on a trail northeast of Fall City, about 40km east of Seattle, KOMO-TV reported. Friends of the woman, 60, “were able to detach and fight this thing off” after it “latched onto” her, Sergeant Carlo Pace of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police said. “They were able to pin down a good size lion with its claws and teeth and everything else under a mountain bike until we arrived,” he said. The woman was released from the hospital. The cougar was shot and killed by wildlife police.
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
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
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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