30 2GM Thursday August 6 2020 | the times
Wo r l d
Turtles back at sea after
rescue from poachers
Indonesia About two dozen
green turtles that were rescued
from poachers have been
returned to the sea from a beach
on Bali. They were among 36
seized last month when several
suspected traffickers were
arrested. The turtles can weigh
more than 300kg and are prized
for their eggs, which are
considered a delicacy, and for
their meat, skin and shells. (AFP)I shot politician at his
home, extremist says
Germany A far-right extremist
has admitted in court that he
shot and killed a politician in a
case that shocked the nation.
Stephan Ernst, 46, is on trial for
the murder of Walter Lübcke,
who led the local administration
in Kassel, central Germany. Mr
Lübcke was shot in his porch in
June 2019. Ernst said he fired the
shot in a statement by his lawyer
to a court in Frankfurt. (AP)Son of 1970s mafia
boss is held in Sicily
Italy Leonardo Badalamenti, 60,
the son of a 1970s Italian mafia
boss, has been arrested in Sicily
on a Brazilian warrant. Police said
he was being held at his mother’s
home awaiting extradition to face
charges of drug trafficking and
bank fraud. Mr Badalamenti’s
father, Gaetano, took his family
to Brazil in the 1980s to avoid the
mafia wars started by the
Corleone clan. (Reuters)Death of Bollywood
actor prompts inquiry
India The death of a Bollywood
actor will be examined by the
federal investigative agency,
India’s top prosecutor has said.
Sushant Singh Rajput, 34, was
found at home in Mumbai on
June 14. The police said his death
was “accidental” and local media
described it as a suicide. His
family had called for an inquiry.
His death has been the subject of
conspiracy theories. (Reuters)Toxic waste from nickel
plant flows into a river
Russia Greenpeace says that it
has found 50 times the permitted
level of toxic substances at the
site of a waste water dump used
by Norilsk Nickel in the Russian
Arctic. Last month the company
said it had sacked managers at a
metal-processing plant after
industrial water was dumped
near the city of Norilsk.
Greenpeace said that the water
had flowed into a river. (Reuters)Turkey plans to drop
domestic abuse treaty
Turkey President Erdogan’s AK
Party is considering pulling out of
a Council of Europe accord that
campaigners believe is the key to
stopping the rise of domestic
violence. In 2011 Turkey signed
the Istanbul Convention, pledging
to prevent, prosecute and
eliminate domestic violence and
promote equality. Last year there
were 474 femicides — the murder
of women and girls because they
are female — twice as many as in- Many conservatives in
Turkey say the pact encourages
violence by undermining family
structures. The issue has divided
the president’s family, with two of
his children involved in opposing
campaigns. (Reuters)
President Trump has urged his sup-
porters in Florida to vote by post, con-
tradicting his own claims that mass
mail voting would result in fraud.
The president has repeatedly warned
against widespread postal voting,
despite the possible health risks of
voting in person during a pandemic.
On Tuesday night, however, he
altered his message for voters in Flor-
ida, a crucial swing state where polls
show Joe Biden ahead and older people
often tend to vote Republican.
“Whether you call it Vote by Mail or
Absentee Voting, in Florida the election
system is Safe and Secure, Tried and
True,” the president wrote on Twitter.
“Florida’s Voting system has been
cleaned up (we defeated Democrats
attempts at change), so in Florida I
encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote
by Mail!”
The intervention came after some
Republicans suggested that Mr
Narendra Modi has laid the foundation
stone for a Hindu temple on the site of
a demolished 16th-century mosque,
marking a triumphant day for the Indi-
an prime minister and his supporters.
Laying a silver brick in the northern
city of Ayodhya, Mr Modi compared
the Hindu struggle to rebuild the tem-
ple to India’s fight for independence.
Hindus celebrated across India but
critics lamented the country’s slide into
Modi sets Hindu temple in stone at razed mosque site
nationalism. “Tens of millions of Indi-
ans cannot believe this day has come...
The fight for the temple is like the fight
for freedom... The construction of the
Ram temple is an instrument to unite
the country,” Mr Modi said.
The site has been disputed by Hindus
and Muslims for decades. Hindu fanat-
ics attacked and demolished the Babri
mosque in 1992, sparking religious riots
that left thousands dead.
Hindus believe that the site is the
birthplace of the god Ram and that a
previous temple in Ayodhya was de-molished by India’s Mughal rulers in
the 16th century. The demolition of the
Babri mosque triggered a decades-long
legal dispute for control of the site until
India’s Supreme Court ruled in favour
of the Hindu claim last year. Muslim
groups have been granted land to build
a mosque elsewhere.
Mr Modi, 69, and his Hindu national-
ist Bharatiya Janata Party have cam-
paigned for years to restore the Ram
temple. Thousands of bricks, many
from the mosque itself, are assembled
at a yard near the disputed site, readyfor construction to begin. A 251m-tall
statue of Ram will be built on the banks
of the Saryu river.
“India is a secular country. The prime
minister has violated the oath of office
by laying the foundation stone,” Asad-
uddin Owaisi, an MP and Muslim
leader, said. “This day is a defeat for
democracy and secularism.”
Yesterday marked a year since Mr
Modi revoked the semi-autonomous
status of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s
only Muslim-majority state, imposing
direct rule from Delhi.India
Hugh Tomlinson
Lighting-up time Hindus light lamps before a groundbreaking ceremony at the new Ram temple in Ayodhya, a site that is contested between Hindus and Muslims
SANJAY KANOJIA/AFP/GETTY IMAGESTrump forgets his fear of postal
vote fraud in knife-edge Florida
Trump’s attacks on postal voting meant
that the state’s overwhelmingly elderly
supporters might simply not vote.
Polling seen by Politico, the political
website, found that suspicion of postal
voting was now so high that 15 per cent
of Trump supporters in Florida said
they would be less likely to vote if sent
a ballot in the post.
Voter fraud in America is rare,
despite Mr Trump’s claims to the
contrary.
The expected surge in postal
voting has also raised fears that
the winner of November’s
election may not be known for
some time.
Results of close primary
contests in New York on June
23 were not formally an-
nounced until Tuesday, six
weeks after polls closed.
Many novice postal voters
filled out their ballots incorrectly:
failing to sign it, returning it in the
wrong envelope or sealing it with
tape rather than saliva. New Yorkrefused to take on extra staff to ease the
administrative load, slowing the count-
ing process dramatically.
Michael Morley, a professor in elect-
ion law at Florida State University, told
The Times that the city’s experience
“shows the worst-case scenario” for
what might happen in November.
Around the country there is “tre-
mendous variation in the resources
available to election officials, the skill
and training of those officials, the
number of officials available
and the different hurdles they
encounter,” he said.
The rise of postal
voting, with at least
77 per cent of Ameri-
cans expected to be
able to cast their ballot
by mail, would mean
that there would be
more “post-election
litigation than ever beforein a modern presidential election”, he
said.
The warnings arose as the Demo-
cratic Party abandoned plans to hold a
limited convention in Milwaukee. The
event had already been scaled back.
Mr Biden and other headline speak-
ers had been expected to address the
nation. The party said, however, that
the proposed meeting would “risk the
health” of Milwaukee residents.
Mr Trump will also not attend Char-
lotte, where a pared-back Republican
convention is being held. He was to give
his speech at the conference accepting
the party’s presidential nomination.
He said yesterday that he might give
the speech in the grounds of the White
House. “It would be easiest from the
standpoint of security,” he told Fox
News. “I think it’s a beautiful setting.”
John Thune, 59, the second most
senior Republican in the senate, raised
doubts, however, over the use of the
White House for campaigning. He
asked: “Is that even legal? I assume
that’s not something that you could do.”United States
Henry Zeffman Washington
Trump supporters said a mail ballot
would make them less likely to vote