NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Hostage released: Wearing a surgical mask to guard against COVID19, an Italian woman returned to her homeland Sunday after 18 months as a hostage in eastern Africa. Silvia Romano lowered her mask briefly to display a broad smile after she stepped off a plane in Rome. Romano, 24, was working as a volunteer with an aid group when she was abducted in November 2018 during an attack by gunmen in Kenya. Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte thanked Italian intelligence agents who worked for her release, which took place Friday in Somalia. Italian news reports said the abductors eventually passed her into the hands of militants linked to Somalia’s alShabab Islamic extremists.
2 Kashmir violence: Police in the Pakistanruled part of Kashmir say Indian troops across the disputed border opened fire with automatic rifles on Sunday, fatally shooting a women. Shauzia Akhtar was shot in the head and chest as she prepared breakfast in her home along the border, said Chaudhry Zulqarnain, a police officer for the district of Rawalakot, where the shooting took place. There was no immediate response from India. Crossborder attacks are frequent but in recent days attacks have increased with both Pakistan and India reporting soldiers killed in the fighting. Both countries claim a united Kashmir as their own and have twice gone to war over the territory.
3 Prisoner swap: Iran says it is ready for prisoner swap talks with the United States because of fears that the coronavirus could put the lives of the prisoners at risk, Iranian media reported Sunday. Iranian news website Khabaronline.ir quoted Cabinet spokesman Ali Rabiei as saying there is a “readiness for all prisoners” to be discussed without condition. “But the U.S. has refused to answer, so far,” said Rabiei. Last week, U.S. officials said they were making progress in efforts to secure the release of a detained Navy veteran in Iran. But they were also pushing back on Iranian suggestions that a swap was in the works for an imprisoned Iranian who American officials have been trying to deport since last year.
4 Hong Kong protests: Riot police grappled with prodemocracy protesters who gathered in shopping malls Sunday after permission for a Mother’s Day march was denied. The rally was the latest to show a desire by the prodemocracy camp to revive the protests against Hong Kong’s Beijingbacked government that paralyzed parts of the semiautonomous Chinese territory for months last year. With the coronavirus outbreak subsiding, more people in Hong Kong have responded to online calls for action, although in far smaller numbers than the hundreds of thousands who marched last year against proposed legislation that could have seen dissidents or criminal suspects extradited to mainland China to face unfair trials and possible torture. The legislation was withdrawn, but the protests continued.
5 AntiSemitism: The number of antiSemitic crimes committed in Germany increased 13% last year, according to an annual review cited Sunday by the newspaper Welt am Sonntag. More than 2,000 acts were committed against Jews and Jewish institutions in 2019, the annual report on politically motivated crimes indicated, compared to 1,799 in 2018. Details were reported ahead of its official presentation Tuesday by Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and the head of the Federal Criminal Police Office. Politically motivated crimes were up 14% overall to more than 41,000, compared to 36,062 in 2018. The increase in politically motivated crimes was particularly high in the state of Brandenburg, with an increase of 52.5%, and in Thuringia, with an increase of 40%.