CHINA
Engineer sentenced to death
A former engineer has been sentenced to death for leaking state secrets to a foreign power, the Ministry of State Security said yesterday. The man, surnamed Liu, “secretly copied, duplicated, and sold a large volume of state secrets to a foreign espionage and intelligence agency,” the ministry wrote on WeChat. Liu had worked as an assistant engineer at a research institute and had resigned after believing he had been treated unfairly, it said. Before leaving, he “secretly copied and retained a large quantity of classified materials he had handled, intending to use them later for retaliation or blackmail against his superiors,” it added, without naming the research institute or providing Liu’s full name. The foreign intelligence agency — which was not named — cut off contact after tricking Liu into handing over the classified information at “a very low price,” the ministry said.
Photo: AFP
SOMALIA
Bomb targets president
A roadside bomb exploded on Tuesday near the presidential palace and the government said the attack by a militant group targeted the president’s convoy. The Ministry of Information in a statement called the attack in the capital, Mogadishu, a “cowardly act of desperation” by the militant group al-Shabaab, which claimed responsibility. The statement did not provide an official death toll, but a witness said he counted three bodies at the scene. The president was unharmed. The explosion happened just after President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was driven out of the palace grounds in a convoy heading to the main airport. He was headed to Middle Shabelle to oversee military operations against al-Shabaab.
Photo: Reuters
ECUADOR
Spill emergency declared
State-owned oil company Petroecuador on Tuesday declared an emergency over a damaged pipeline and cut exports of crude oil following a spill that polluted several rivers. The spill on Thursday last week was believed to have been caused when a landslide ruptured a major pipeline, releasing tens of thousands of barrels of oil..
Photo: Reuters
UNITED STATES
Trump lambasts judge
President Donald Trump on Tuesday called for the impeachment of a judge who on Saturday ordered a suspension to deportation flights taking alleged Tren de Aragua gang members to El Salvador, where they were put in prison. District Judge James Boasberg held a hearing on Monday on whether the White House had deliberately ignored his orders by carrying out the flights. Department of Justice lawyers told the judge that the flight had left when he issued a written order barring their departure. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday that Boasberg “was not elected President.” Representative Brandon Gill later wrote on X that he had introduced articles of impeachment in the House of Representatives against Boasberg, whom he described as a “radical activist judge.” Supreme Court Justice John Roberts rebuked Trump over his call for impeachment. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.” Following Roberts’ statement, Trump wrote: “If a President doesn’t have the right to throw murderers, and other criminals, out of our Country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge wants to assume the role of President, then our Country is in very big trouble, and destined to fail!”
A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her. Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected. On May 4, 2021, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. A neighbor hearing
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
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