NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Fugitive assassin: Police in Bangladesh arrested a fugitive killer of the country’s independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on Tuesday, nearly 45 years after the brutal assassination, the country’s home minister said. Abdul Majed, a former military captain, was arrested in the capital, Dhaka. Majed had publicly announced his involvement in the assassination after the killing and had reportedly been hiding in India for many years. It was not clear when or how he returned to Bangladesh. Majed is one of a dozen defendants whose death sentences were upheld by the country’s Supreme Court in 2009. A trial court in 1998 had sentenced them to death for their involvement in the 1975 killing of Rahman and most of his family members.
2 Shark death: A shark fatally mauled a young Australian wildlife worker on the Great Barrier Reef, officials said Tuesday. Queensland state Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the 23yearold victim worked for the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Police said the man was in the water, returning to a vessel chartered by the service when he was attacked Monday near North West Island, 47 miles northeast of Gladstone. He suffered extensive injuries to his leg and arm and died at a hospital hours later.
3 Mating pandas: Ying Ying and Le Le, two giant pandas who could never quite get in the mood over 13 years of living together in a Hong Kong zoo, successfully mated this week, a rare feat for the famously lowlibido species and a cause of celebration in the world of animal conservation. The coupling of the pandas, animals that have a mating “season” of just a few days per year, lifted hope that the population of the vulnerable species might be about to increase. Whether in captivity or in the wild, giant pandas rarely show the desire or skill to mate, imperiling their survival and making their infrequent romps worthy of acclaim. The difficulties that pandas find in reproducing has contributed to the species becoming vulnerable. In 2014, the Worldwide Fund for Nature estimated that there were only 1,864 giant pandas remaining in the wild.
4 Genocide anniversary: People across Rwanda marked the anniversary of the 1994 genocide at home after the government banned the annual Walk to Remember and a night vigil at the national stadium due to the coronavirus. The national commission for the fight against genocide said even group visits to genocide memorials have been suspended. Instead, Rwandans followed commemoration events on television or social media as President Paul Kagame lit the flame of remembrance and addressed the nation. More than 800,000 ethnic Tutsi and Hutus who tried to protect them were killed during 100 days in 1994. The mass killing of the Tutsi was ignited on April 6 when a plane carrying President Juvnal Habyarimana was shot down and crashed in Kigali, killing the leader who, like most Rwandans, was an ethnic Hutu.
5 Mali violence: Armed men attacked an army camp in Mali’s north, killing at least 25 soldiers, the army said Tuesday. “Yesterday, our camp in the town of Bamba in the Gao region was attacked” and six others were wounded, said army spokesman Col. Maj. Diarran Kone. The army was in control of Bamba as of Tuesday, he added. The attack has not been claimed but bore the mark of armed groups linked to al Qaeda or the Islamic State that are present in the Gao region. This is the second major attack this year against army positions in Gao. More than 30 soldiers were killed near the end of March in an attack on the village of Tarkint. The attacks come at a time when the government has announced its intention to open dialogue with armed groups linked to al Qaeda.