Category: x.straitsTimes

The White House is listening to demands for President Joe Biden to extend the same grace to thousands of people wronged by the U.S. judicial system as he did to his son Hunter, officials say. Since Biden’s pardon of Hunter on Sunday, a growing chorus of civil rights activists and lawmakers have called for broader clemency for other people they believe were unfairly convicted or sentenced. Defense attorneys and civil rights groups are ramping up efforts to highlight compelling cases,…

French lawmakers on Dec 4 voted to oust the government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier after just three months in office, a historic move which plunged the country further into political chaos. For the first time in over 60 years, the National Assembly lower house toppled the incumbent government, approving a no-confidence motion that had been proposed by the hard left but which crucially was backed by the far-right headed by Marine Le Pen. Mr Barnier’s rapid ejection from office…

Mexican authorities detained more than 5,200 migrants across the country on Tuesday, officials said on Wednesday, in a major sweep as the nation is under pressure from the incoming U.S. government to crack down on arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has called on Mexico to ramp up efforts to stop both migrants and synthetic drugs such as fentanyl from coming into the U.S., threatening to slap tariffs on the southern trade partner. From Oct. 1 to…

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s Senate on Thursday passed a measure to abolish the autonomous bodies that regulate some economic sectors and ensure government transparency, a reform that has sparked outcry from the opposition and industry. Lawmakers in the upper chamber voted on the proposal’s general terms with 86 in favor and 42 against, with nearly the same tally coming in for the bill’s particular terms. It had passed in the lower house last week. The reform proposes scrapping autonomous agencies…

AMSTERDAM – The International Criminal Court’s governing body will launch an external probe into its chief prosecutor Karim Khan over alleged sexual misconduct, it said in a statement on Monday, confirming a previous report by Reuters. “An external investigation is … being pursued in order to ensure a fully independent, impartial and fair process”, the statement said, also calling upon all parties to cooperate fully. Khan said in a statement that he would stay on in his key function of…

NEW YORK – Huawei Technologies asked a US judge to dismiss much of a federal indictment accusing the Chinese telecommunications company of trying to steal technology secrets from US rivals and misleading banks about its business in Iran. In a Friday night filing in federal court in Brooklyn, Huawei said there was no proof of a conspiracy, calling the charge part of the Department of Justice’s “ill-founded” China Initiative to prosecute people and companies with ties to China. Huawei said…

WASHINGTON – The United States financed the purchase of Israeli spy software Pegasus for Colombian security forces in 2020, a senior US official said on Nov 8, a move made without informing then-President Ivan Duque. The US official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, corroborated a report in the Colombian daily newspaper El Tiempo that the software was used to investigate drug traffickers. The official denied the use of the software – which can remotely access messages, calls and…

LOS ANGELES – Leonard Francis, the Malaysian military contractor known as “Fat Leonard”, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Nov 5 for his role in the US Navy’s worst-ever corruption scandal. Francis, 60, was also ordered to pay US$20 million (S$26.3 million) in restitution to the US Navy by a federal judge in San Diego and to forfeit US$35 million in ill-gotten gains, said the US Attorney’s office for the Southern District of California in a statement. Francis,…

MEXICO CITY – Two Mexican journalists were shot dead in less than 24 hours in western states, according to authorities, as the country faces a flare-up of violence in the region. A Mexican journalist was shot dead in the western state of Colima on Wednesday afternoon, the state persecutor’s office told Reuters. Her name was Patricia Ramirez, also known by her nickname Paty Bunbury, and she worked as an entertainment reporter, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a…

LISBON – Thousands of people took to the main avenue of downtown Lisbon on Oct 26 to protest police violence, several days after a policeman shot a Cape Verde-born Portuguese resident, triggering a wave of unrest. Rights group Vida Justa, which called the protest, changed the route to avoid clashes with supporters of the far-right anti-immigration party Chega, which held a separate smaller rally also in central ​​​​Lisbon in support of the police. Violence had broken out on the multi-ethnic…

MILAN – Italian police have placed four people under house arrest as part of a probe into alleged illegal access to state databases by a private intelligence business run by a former policeman, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The person told Reuters that Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, son of late billionaire Leonardo Del Vecchio, who founded Ray Ban-owner Luxottica, is among those targeted by the probe. Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, whom Reuters could not immediately…

Global financiers are poised to flock to Saudi Arabia’s annual flagship investment conference next week as a tightening of the kingdom’s purse strings and a deepening of regional conflict cloud the outlook. Among those expected to descend on the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh are top CEOs, including Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Citigroup’s Jane Fraser and the London Stock Exchange’s Julia Hoggett. The high-profile event, first held in 2017, fills an opulent hotel in the capital…

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada faced the stiffest challenge to his leadership from fellow elected Liberal Party members on Oct 23 during a closed-door meeting where he was urged to resign to avoid torpedoing the party’s chances in the next election. For more than a year, the Liberals under Mr Trudeau have trailed the Conservative Party by double digits in polls, suggesting that the Liberal Party could face a crushing defeat in the next election, which must be held…

ROME – Italy’s right-wing government is facing criticism over its celebration of a major World War II battle, after the defence ministry said the defeated fascist soldiers of dictator Benito Mussolini had died for the country’s freedom. In a social media post on Oct 23 commemorating the anniversary of the 1942 battle of El Alamein in Egypt, the ministry described the conflict as “heroic and tragic” and paid homage to Italy’s soldiers “who sacrificed their lives for our freedom”. The…

LIMA – Peruvian former President Alejandro Toledo was convicted of taking bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht and sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison on Monday. The verdict marks Peru’s first high-profile conviction related to Brazil’s continent-spanning Lava Jato corruption scandal. Toledo, a 78-year-old economist who holds a doctorate from Stanford University, governed the Andean nation between 2001 and 2006. He was convicted of taking $35 million in bribes from the company formerly known as Odebrecht, according…

A European spy agency told the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) it knew of an Ukraine special operations team plan to blow up the Nord Stream gas pipeline three months before explosions damaged the undersea system last year, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper cited US intelligence allegedly leaked earlier this year by a low-level US Air National Guard computer technician who had access to large amounts of highly classified materials.

The leaked documents indicated that an unnamed European intelligence body told the US spy agency in June 2022, four months after Russia invaded Ukraine, that Ukraine military divers reporting directly to the country’s military commander-in-chief were planning the attack.