June, 2016

• 11 June

  Nobel laureates urge voters to remain in EU

    LONDON / AFP A group of 13 Nobel laureates have urged UK voters to remain in the European Union, warning that Britain will lose funding, global influence and access to expertise if the nation votes to leave the 28-nation bloc. The scientists wrote an open letter to the Daily Telegraph newspaper, expressing concern that those arguing that Britain should ...

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• 11 June

  Rousseff called as witness in Brazil corruption case

    Rio de Janeiro / AFP President Dilma Rousseff, suspended from office pending her impeachment trial, has been called as a defense witness for a key figure in the Petrobras corruption scandal, Brazilian media reported. The case reportedly involves Marcelo Odebrecht, the former head of a family-owned construction company who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role ...

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• 11 June

  Hooligans, strikes spook Euro 2016

  

    Paris / AFP After a triumphant start to Euro 2016, France braced for more strike disruptions and hooligan violence as England face Russia in a high-risk match on Saturday. A tense France was finally able to party after winning the opening match against Romania and avoiding major hiccups as ongoing industrial unrest failed to disrupt transport to the Stade de ...

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• 11 June

  Gunmen kill 11 from same family in Mexico

    Puebla / AFP Gunmen marched into a remote mountain village in Mexico and killed 11 members of the same family, including two children, apparently over “personal conflicts,” authorities said. Five women, four men and two girls were killed in the pre-dawn attack in El Mirador, a community in central Puebla state, near Oaxaca. Two other girls were wounded in ...

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• 11 June

  Venezuela lets Maduro recall advance, with threats

  

    Caracas / AFP Facing mounting pressure from food shortages, looting and increasingly violent protests, Venezuelan authorities announced the next stage of a recall referendum against embattled President Nicolas Maduro. But Maduro’s camp said it would go to the Supreme Court to contest the process, accusing the opposition of fraud while gathering the signatures needed to call a referendum. The wranglings ...

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• 11 June

  Duterte not for summary killings after Ban criticism

    Manila / AFP Philippine president-elect Rodrigo Duterte does not endorse extrajudicial killings, his spokesman said on Saturday after scathing criticism from the UN chief over his plans for thousands of people to die in an unprecedented war on crime. Duterte won last month’s elections by a landslide largely due to an explosive law-and-order platform in which he pledged to ...

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• 11 June

  West slams Syrian regime over barrel bombings of Daraya

  

    Beirut/ AFP Western powers lashed out at Syria’s government, accusing regime forces of dropping barrel bombs on the town of Daraya hours after it received its first food aid in almost four years. The strikes, using crude unguided explosive devices, came as Arab-Kurdish fighters said they had encircled a stronghold of IS fighters in northern Syria, cutting off a ...

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• 11 June

  US imprisons man for violating Syria sanctions

    Los Angeles / AFP A California man was sentenced to 32 months in prison for conspiring to skirt US sanctions against Syria by sending tactical military equipment to extremists in the war-torn country. Amin Al Baroudi, 50, a Syrian-born naturalized US citizen, pleaded guilty in January to purchasing tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of tactical equipment, including night ...

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• 11 June

  Shabaab says it executed 4 ‘spies’ in Somalia

  Mogadishu / AFP Shabaab extremists in Somalia have publicly executed four men they accused of spying, including one they claimed helped kill their supreme leader in a US drone strike, the Al-Qaeda-linked group and local sources said on Saturday. The executions took place on Friday evening in a village in the Bay region in the centre of the country, the ...

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• 11 June

  Libyan forces ‘retake port’ in extremist bastion Sirte

  

    Tripoli / AFP Forces allied with Libya’s unity government said on Saturday they had recaptured the port in the extremist stronghold of Sirte from IS group fighters who are now surrounded inside the city. The fall of Sirte, the hometown of ousted dictator Moamer Kadhafi, would be a major setback to the extremists who have also lost territory in ...

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