8 NEWS The world at a glance
THE WEEK 7 May 2022
Alexandria, Virginia
Isis killer jailed: One of the four Islamic
State militants known as “the Beatles”
has been sentenced to eight life terms
by a court in Virginia. Alexanda Kotey
pleaded guilty last September to charges
relating to the abduction, torture and
execution of hostages. He will serve the
first 15 years of his sentence in a US jail,
but under the terms of his plea deal, he
could then be moved to one in the UK.
Kotey, 38, was born in London to a
Ghanaian father and Greek Cypriot mother, and converted to
Islam in his 20s. His fellow “Beatle”, El Shafee Elsheikh, was
convicted last month; he will be sentenced in August.
Washington DC
Roe v. Wade “egregiously wrong”: The US supreme court is
poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that enshrined a
woman’s right to an abortion, a leaked document suggests. The
nine justices have been considering a case brought by the state of
Mississippi; they are not due to publish their ruling until late June
or early July, but this week Politico published a draft opinion
describing the original ruling as “egregiously wrong” and saying
decisions about access to abortion should be returned to states’
elected representatives. The court says the draft, written by Justice
Samuel Alito, does not reflect its final opinion; but pro-choice
campaigners are braced for a bombshell ruling that would lead to
abortion being banned or heavily restricted in about half of the 50
US states immediately or within weeks. President Biden responded
to the leak by vowing to codify abortion rights into law.
Washington DC
Rwanda lawsuit: Relations of Paul Rusesabagina – the hotel
manager whose life-saving actions during the Rwandan
genocide were described in the film Hotel Rwanda
- have filed a $400m lawsuit in the US against the
Rwandan government, accusing it of conspiring to
abduct, torture and imprison him. After the 1994 genocide,
Rusesabagina, now 67, left Rwanda for a new life in Belgium
and the US, where he became a prominent critic of President Paul
Kagame. His family say that in 2020 he was tricked into leaving
his home in Texas, on the promise of a job in Burundi. Instead, he
was taken to Rwanda, where, the lawsuit says, Kagame’s security
agents abducted and tortured him. He was then tried on allegedly
trumped-up charges, and sentenced to 25 years in jail.
Guayaquil, Ecuador
Emergency measures: Ecuador’s president has declared a 60-day
state of emergency in three provinces. Guillermo Lasso said the
measures in Guayas, Manabí and Esmeraldas – which include
11pm to 5am curfews in some areas, and the deployment of
thousands of security personnel – were needed to “enforce peace
and order” following a sharp increase in drug-related violence.
“Our peace will never be sacrificed to criminal gangs,” he said.
The government has blamed the spike in violent crime on gangs
with links to Mexican cartels, which it says are using the country
as a transit route for cocaine that is being trafficked to the US. In
the town of Durán, one of the places where a curfew is now in
place, two bodies were recently found strung from a bridge, a
form of killing often used by Mexican gangs.
Miami, Florida
Drug charge: The elected premier of the British Virgin Islands
(BVI) has been arrested in a sting operation in Miami and charged
with drug trafficking and money laundering. According to US
officials, Andrew Fahie had flown to Miami thinking he was
going to meet Mexican drug traffickers, who wanted to arrange
the transport of cocaine through the Caribbean islands; in fact,
the supposed members of the Sinaloa cartel were undercover DEA
agents. The BVI’s director of ports, and her son, have also been
charged. Last year, the UK set up an inquiry into misgovernance
in the British Overseas Territory, which is home to 30,000 people.
At the time, Fahie said that there was no evidence of corruption.
Brasília
Twitter barbs: President Jair
Bolsonaro has hit back at Leonardo
DiCaprio for urging young Brazilians
to register to vote in October’s presidential election. “Brazil is
home to the Amazon and other ecosystems critical to climate
change,” said the actor in a tweet. “What happens there matters
to us all and youth voting is key in driving change for a healthy
planet.” Bolsonaro, who is accused of dismantling environmental
protections in the Amazon, tweeted back sarcastically: “Thanks
for your support, Leo! It’s really important to have every Brazilian
voting in the coming elections. Our people will decide if they want
to keep our sovereignty on the Amazon or to be ruled by crooks
who serve foreign special interest. Good job in The Revenant!”
Bogotá
Foam horror: Residents of a town
outside the Colombian capital
have been contending with vast
cloud-like blobs of pungent white
foam – which are believed to have
been generated by detergents
dumped in a local river. Pictures
of the scene in Mosquera showed
drifts of the foam burying pavements and towering over residents.
“The smell is terrible, we have had to put up with the smell for a
long time, and now with this big foam we are afraid that we will
be in danger,” a local resident, Luz Mariela Diaz, told AFP. “God
forbid someone falls in there, we won’t be able to find them.”
