NIGERIA GIRLS FREED
Chibok school girls recently freed from Boko Haram captivity are seen Sunday in Abuja, Nigeria. The 82 girls arrived in Nigeria’s capital to meet President Muhammadu Buhari as anxious families awaited an official list of names and looked forward to reuniting three years after the mass abduction.
ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari Sunday met with 82 girls freed by Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram.
The girls, who were kidnapped from their school in the northeastern town of Chibok more than three years ago, were received by Mr. Buhari and other government officials, Channels Television reported.
“I cannot express in a few words how happy I am to welcome our dear girls back to freedom,” Mr. Buhari said in a statement released after the meeting. “No human being should go through this kind of ordeal.”
The president promised “to spare no effort” to ensure that all other people abducted by Boko Haram would also regain their freedom.
Resisting new constitution
Venezuela’s opposition coalition said Sunday that it won’t participate in a convention called by President Nicolas Maduro to write a new constitution, calling the process “fraudulent.”
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles said Mr. Maduro’s assembly goes against the Venezuela’s charter, which requires approval of the nation’s voters to change the constitution. Instead, opposition leaders said they’re planning a protest Monday at the Education Ministry to present arguments against the assembly, and are staging marches across the nation.
EU accused of meddling
LONDON –– U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s government accused some European Union countries of wanting Britain to “fail” as her team stepped up the attack on the bloc’s leaders in a push for votes in the upcoming election.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd claimed that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker held “very hostile” briefings against Ms. May after an April 26 London dinner meeting to influence voters. She criticized the timing of reports — that the EU wants to stop Ms. May from leading talks on the U.K.’s withdrawal from the EU and that the U.K. will face a $110 billion exit bill — in the weeks before the June 8 election.
Conservatives think Ms. May’s focus on the EU’s role in the U.K. election will play well with voters. However, there is a risk that these clashes could damage relations between EU and U.K. officials. EU President Donald Tusk on Thursday appealed for calm.
Pushing for social freedom
In countries with state-controlled media, being president usually gives you command of the airwaves. Not in Iran, where power rests both with elected leaders and guardians of the Islamic Republic.
So as he seeks a second term in the May 19 election, moderate President Hassan Rouhani and his supporters are increasingly circumventing the nation’s censors by using social media.
A campaign video released by Mr. Rouhani’s team was aired on state television on Saturday only after the broadcaster cut parts it deemed politically sensitive, including chants in favor of a former prime minister who has been under house arrest since 2011. Within minutes, the offending clips were released by the president’s campaign office and were circulating via the messaging app Telegram, which has about 40 million users in Iran.
Mr. Rouhani’s followers have also used Twitter to criticize the president’s top conservative rivals — cleric Ebrahim Raisi and Tehran mayor-Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf — and to question their commitment to providing greater social freedoms.
Also in the world ...
Voters in Germany’s northernmost state, Schleswig-Holstein, handed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party an unexpected victory in a state election Sunday.