NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Rebel attack: The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen says Houthi rebels attacked a Saudi oil tanker, causing “minor damage.” The coalition statement says the attack occurred in international waters on Tuesday near the Red Sea port of Hodeida. It did not provide further details on the weapon used or the extent of the damage. The coalition says a naval ship belonging to a member country rapidly intervened, without giving further details. Spokesman Col. Turki al-Malki described it as a “terrorist attack” that threatens ships entering the vital Bab al-Mandeb strait, used for oil shipments from the Gulf to Europe.
2 Invalid votes: Egyptian President AbdelFattah el-Sissi’s victory in last week’s election was never in doubt, but the vote produced a surprise runner-up — an unusually large number of invalid ballots, suggesting a possible protest vote against el-Sissi or the election itself. Official figures released this week by the election commission gave el-Sissi 97 percent of the vote, securing him a second, four-year term in office following an election in which he ran virtually unopposed. His sole challenger, Moussa Mustafa Moussa, a little-known politician who made no effort to challenge him, received 656,534 votes, or 2.92 percent. Moussa’s tally was outdone by the 1.76 million invalid ballots, which would have amounted to 7.27 percent of votes cast, a considerably higher percentage than in the past two presidential elections: 4.07 percent in 2014 and 3.1 percent in the 2012 runoff. Critics denounced the latest election as a farce because a string of potentially serious challengers were either forced out of the race or arrested.
3 Nuclear reactor: The leaders of Russia and Turkey on Tuesday launched the start of construction for Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, as ties between the two nations deepen. Russian President Vladimir Putin, on his first foreign visit since being re-elected on March 18, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remotely gave the go-ahead for the construction of the Russian-built nuclear power plant on the Mediterranean coast at Akkuyu. During Tuesday’s ceremony in Ankara, Erdogan said the first reactor would become operational in 2023 and when all of the plant’s reactors were activated it would meet 10 percent of Turkey’s energy needs.
4 Ivory ban: Britain says it will ban the sale of ivory, no matter how old, to help protect the world’s elephant population. The government said Tuesday that the ban is the toughest in Europe and will impose a maximum five-year prison sentence for offenders. Environment Secretary Michael Gove says “the abhorrent ivory trade should become a thing of the past.” There will be exceptions for some old musical instruments and for works of art, such as portrait miniatures, that are more than a century old. Conservationists say about 20,000 elephants a year are killed for their tusks.
5 U-turn on fake news: India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Tuesday withdrew a sweeping new order clamping down on journalists accused of spreading fake news. The U-turn came hours after the ministry announced that reporters’ press credentials could be suspended simply for an accusation of spreading fake news. The rules, issued by a government often deeply sensitive to media criticism, angered journalists and opposition politicians, who called it an attempt to gag the media.
Chronicle News Services