YEMEN
Soldier opens fire on Saudis
A soldier for exiled government opened fire on Saudi Arabian troops as they exercised in eastern Yemen, killing two of them and wounding another in a rare insider attack during the kingdom’s nearly decadelong war there, officials said on Saturday. The assault in eastern Hadramawt Province comes as a yearslong cease-fire between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthi rebels largely has held despite the militants’ ongoing attacks against shipping in the Red Sea corridor. While the Houthis did not claim the attack, at least one Houthi official praised it as being “the beginning and an indication of a harsh future awaiting the invaders.” Meanwhile, US warplanes carried out new strikes targeting Houthi positions that lasted into early yesterday morning, the US military said. The strikes come after the militants likely shot down yet another US reconnaissance drone over the country. The attack on the Saudi troops took place on Friday night in Seiyun, a city about 500km east of Sanaa. As troops worked out at a Saudi-led base there, the soldier opened fire, killing an officer and a noncommissioned officer, the state-run Saudi Press Agency said, citing a military statement. “The Joint Forces Command underscores that this ‘Lone Wolf’ cowardly attack does not represent the honorable members of the Yemeni Ministry of Defense,” the statement added.
MEXICO
Gunmen kill 10 people
Gunmen in a truck pulled up to a bar in central Mexico and opened fire, killing 10 people in an area that had been spared the worst of the country’s raging criminal violence, authorities said. The attack on Los Cantaritos bar in Queretaro’s downtown district left 10 people dead inside and at least seven injured, the city’s public security department chief Juan Luis Ferrusca said. “Emergency services arrived at the scene and confirmed that at least four people armed with long weapons had arrived on board a pickup truck,” Ferrusca said in a video on social media. One suspect was detained and the vehicle used in the attack was found abandoned and set on fire, he said, adding that there were no reports of similar incidents in the city. The victims included three women, the Queretaro state prosecutor’s office, which said forensic experts were examining the scene of the attack and the vehicle.
CUBA
Protesters arrested
The government on Saturday said it arrested an unspecified number of people who staged demonstrations when a hurricane left the island without power for the second time in weeks. Street protests are very rare in communist-run Cuba. The prosecutor’s office said those arrested in Havana and the central provinces of Mayabeque and Ciego de Avila were being charged with assault, public disorder and property damage. Hurricane Rafael knocked power out on Wednesday after hitting the west of the Caribbean island of 10 million people as a major Category 3 storm. The blackout lasted two days. It came just two weeks after Hurricane Oscar, which left eight dead in the east of the island during a national electricity blackout caused by the failure of the island’s biggest power plant and a shortage of fuel. The government said that half of the people of Havana now have electricity again, but much of the capital and the neighboring province of Artemisa do not. Those detained after protesting were being held “for acts of aggression against authorities and territorial inspectors, causing injuries and public disturbances,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS