UNITED STATES
Maduro’s plane seized
The government has seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s plane after concluding it was bought and operated in violation of Washington’s sanctions. The Dassault Falcon 900EX jet was seized earlier this year by police in the Dominican Republic when it landed in Santo Domingo. A Florida district court on May 22 requested an embargo on the aircraft, documents obtained by Bloomberg showed. The plane was purchased through a shell firm and smuggled out of the country, the Department of Justice said. It was found to be operating in violation of export control restrictions for the benefit of Maduro and those around him, the department said in a statement. The plane has been flown to Florida. Maduro’s government said in a statement it considered the “illegal” seizure by the US as part of a series of “incremental actions” against Venezuela.
DR CONGO
129 die in jail break try
At least 129 people were killed during a weekend prison break attempt at the nation’s largest jail, Minister of the Interior Jacquemain Shabani said in a video message yesterday. “The provisional human toll is 129 dead, including 24 who were shot after warnings,” Shabani said, adding that at least 59 others had been wounded at the Makala prison in Kinshasa. Several people had been crushed or suffocated and a number of women had been raped, the ministry said. Witnesses said gunfire had started at the prison at about 2am on Monday morning and lasted for several hours.
UAE
Jailed protesters pardoned
President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan has pardoned 57 Bangladeshi citizens who were convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms for staging a rare protest in the Gulf country, Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported yesterday. The decision cancels the sentences of those convicted and those pardoned are to be deported, the state media said. The Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal last month sentenced 57 Bangladeshis in an expedited trial after they staged a protest against then-Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her government amid protests in Bangladesh. Three Bangladeshis had been sentenced to life in prison, while 53 were sentenced to 10 years in prison. One Bangladeshi, who state media said had entered the nation illegally and “participated in the riot,” was sentenced to 11 years. The Public Prosecution had accused the Bangladeshi nationals of “crimes of gathering in a public place and protesting against their home government with the intent to incite unrest.”
INDIA
Recruitments death probed
The government yesterday launched a probe after 12 applicants for coveted government jobs died during physical tests for posts as excise officers, with commentators saying it illustrated the scale of the unemployment crisis. The young men were among 500,000 applicants vying for just 583 jobs as constables in the excise department — more than 850 people for each post. The 12 died in the past two weeks during a series of 10km races in humid conditions in Jharkhand State. Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren called the deaths “heartbreaking” and ordered health experts to examine the “untimely death of these youth, so that such accidents do not happen in future.” State police chief Anurag Gupta said investigations had begun. The recruitment drive has been paused.
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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