Venezuelan military hit with sanctions
WASHINGTON— The Trump administration imposed sanctions Friday on four senior Venezuelan military officials for alleged corruption and repression, ina bid to raise the pressure on President Nicolas Mad ur o’ s government.
Among those targeted in the Treasury Department’s action are Rodolfo Marco Torres, a retired general who is now Aragua state’s governor, and Francisco Rangel Gomez, another former general and previous governor of Bolivar state.
The Associated Press last year collected documents and testimony from business owners describing Mr. Torres, a former Venezuelan food minister, as a key figure involved in fraudulent food imports.
Forced wedding alleged
NEWDELHI — Police in India’s eastern Bihar state areinvestigating a complaint from a young man that he was allegedly kidnapped and forced to marry awoman he did not know.
“We are looking into a complaint by Vinod Kumar’s family and will take action once investigations are over,” senior police official Manu Maharaj said Friday.
The practice of kidnapping men and forcing them to wed is apparently prevalent in parts of Bihar by poorer families who cannot afford the dowries demanded by grooms with professional qualifications.
Foul odor diverts flight
United Airlines passengers found themselves in a fetid situation when their Chicago-to-Hong Kong flight made an unscheduled landing in Alaska after a man had smeared feces all over some of the plane’s bathrooms, airport officials said.
United Flight 895 was diverted to Anchorage on Thursday night, according to CBS affiliate KTVA, and police officials at Ted Stevens International Airport said the landing was due to a “passenger smearing feces everywhere.”
Detention challenged
An unidentified American allowed to speak with the ACLU by a federal court has asked the group to challenge his nearly four-month detention without charges by the U.S. military in Iraq.
He was moved to Iraq after being captured in Syria when he surrendered on a battlefield and was held as an enemy combatant and suspected member of the Islamic State, the government has said.
In a court filing, ACLU attorneys said the U.S. citizen informed them of his wishes during a video conference arranged through the Pentagon on Wednesday morning. The video conference was set up after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of Washington on Dec. 23 ordered the Defense Department to give the civil liberties group access to the man.
Bribery case guilty plea
NEWYORK — A nephew of former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Kimoon pleaded guilty Friday in a bribery case that grew from an attempt to sell a building complex in Vietnam for $800 million.
Joo Hyun Bahn, also known as Dennis Bahn, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and a corruption count in Manhattan federal court as part of a deal with prosecutors.
He has been free on bail for a year since he was charged with trying to pay $2.5 million in bribes to rescue the failed real estate deal for Landmark 72, a Vietnam building complex that included a 72-story commercial building that was then the tallest building in the Indochina Peninsula.