At least 145 people were killed and 800,000 need emergency food and other assistance after Cyclone Mocha slammed into the conflict-torn country of Myanmar earlier this week, the United Nations said. "The cyclone left a trail of devastation across Myanmar's Rakhine State, with houses flattened, roads cut off by uprooted trees, hospitals and schools destroyed, and telecommunications and power lines severely disrupted," Anthea Webb, the UN World Food Programme's deputy regional director for Asia and the Pacific, told reporters in Geneva.
Global executions up by 53% in ’22
Executions worldwide increased by 53% in 2022 from a year earlier, with a significant rise in Iran and Saudi Arabia, Amnesty International said in an annual report that also criticised Indonesia as having one of the highest numbers of new death sentences in Asia. Amnesty said 70% of the executions in West Asia and North Africa were carried out in Iran, where their numbers rose by 83% from 314 in 2021 to 576 in 2022. The number of executions in Saudi Arabia tripled from 65 in 2021 to 196 in 2022. Increases compared to 2021 were also recorded in Kuwait, Myanmar, the Palestinian territories, Singapore and US. In all, 20 countries executed 883 people, compared to 579 in 18 countries in 2021.
12 killed, 90 hurt in stampede at El Salvador
Twelve people were killed and 90 others injured in a stampede at a soccer stadium in El Salvador, authorities said, turning a highly anticipated match into a chaotic scene as fans rushed to save people suffocating under a mass of bodies. Videos circulating on Twitter showed dozens of people clad in white appearing to rush toward an exit at the stadium, with some lying on the ground as more pile on top. It was not immediately clear what prompted the rush at Cuscatlan Stadium in San Salvador, where the first league soccer teams, Alianza Futbol Club and Club Deportivo FAS, were playing the second leg of a quarterfinal.
3 Russian hypersonic scientists face treason
Three Russian academics who have worked on hypersonic missile technology face “very serious accusations”, the Kremlin said, in a treason investigation that has spread alarm through Russia’s scientific community. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was aware of an open letter from Siberian scientists in defence of the men, but that the case was a matter for the security services. In the letter, colleagues of Anatoly Maslov, Alexander Shiplyuk and Valery Zvegintsev protested their innocence and said the prosecutions threatened to inflict grave damage on Russian science. “We know each of them as a patriot and a decent person who is not capable of doing what the investigating authorities suspect them of,” they said.
Teen kills 3 and wounds 6 in US
An 18-year-old armed with at least three guns roamed through a northwestern New Mexico community firing randomly at cars and houses, killing three people and injuring six others including two police officers before he was killed, authorities said. The shootings occurred in Farmington, a city of about 50,000 people. Officers responding to reports of shots being fired encountered the attacker within minutes and killed him with at least one shot, Farmington police chief Steve Hebbe said in a video. He said the gunman fired at least three weapons, including an “AR-style rifle”. The identities of the gunman and the victims weren’t released.
Islamic extremist gets 10 life terms
An unrepentant and defiant Islamic extremist received 10 life sentences and another 260 years in prison for killing eight people with a truck on a bike path in Manhattan on Halloween in 2017, as US Judge Vernon Broderick decried his “callous” crimes and announced a sentence, he said, was designed to underscore the severity of the terror attack Sayfullo Saipov claimed he carried out on behalf of the IS group. Broderick cited the defiance of Saipov, who, given a chance to speak, said the tears of victims and family members in the courtroom over a six-month period would fill a single tissue while the tears and blood of the Islamic population worldwide would fill the courtroom.
Former French president loses graft appeal
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy lost his appeal against a 2021 conviction for corruption and influence peddling at the Paris court of appeals, prompting his legal team to promise a challenge at France’s highest court. The court upheld a three-year prison sentence. In line with the initial ruling, it said two of those years were suspended and that Sarkozy would wear an electronic bracelet instead of going to jail for the remaining year. “Sarkozy is innocent of the charges,” his lawyer said. “We won’t give up this fight.” Prosecutors had recommended a softening of the punishment to a three-year suspended sentence. But the court stuck with the initial penalty.
Fire kills 6 in New Zealand capital
A fire ripped through a hostel in New Zealand’s capital, killing at least six people and forcing others to flee the four-story building in their pajamas in what a fire chief called his “worst nightmare.” Six bodies were found but not all areas of the building had been searched yet because the roof on the top floor had collapsed, bringing down debris and making the area unsafe, said Bruce Stubbs, the incident controller for Fire and Emergency New Zealand. Officials said that 52 people had made it out of the building alive but they were still trying to account for others. Police said the cause of the fire was not known yet but they didn’t believe it had been deliberately lit.
Singapore hangs another for drug trafficking
Singapore hanged another citizen for trafficking cannabis, the second in three weeks, as it clung firmly to the death penalty despite growing calls for the city-state to halt drug-related executions. The 37-year-old man was executed after his last-ditch bid to reopen his case was dismissed by the court without a hearing, said activist Kokila Annamalai of the Transformative Justice Collective, which advocates for abolishing death penalty. The man, who wasn’t named, had been imprisoned for seven years and convicted in 2019 for trafficking 1. 5kg of cannabis.