NEWS OF THE DAY
1 ExMarine imprisoned: When Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine, traveled to Moscow from his home in Texas in May 2019, he planned to spend the summer with his Russian girlfriend and take some language lessons. By August, he was in jail, facing charges of assaulting and endangering the lives of two police officers, On Thursday, a court in Moscow sentenced Reed to nine years in prison for the August 2019 episode. He has already spent more than 11 months in a Russian jail. Reed and his family have adamantly denied the allegations that he attacked the officers. Supporters of his cause have likened it to Russia’s recent prosecution of another former Marine, Paul Whelan, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison in June on espionage charges. A number of observers see both cases as a Russian effort to create leverage for a potential prisoner exchange with the U.S. government.
2 Media threats: International media organizations and the United States government have condemned intimidation and threats against Nicaraguan journalists. Intimidation of the media has increased since antigovernment demonstrations began in April 2018. What began as demonstrations against changes to the social security system expanded into a general movement against President Daniel Ortega’s government.
3 Family feud: A Singapore court has fined the nephew of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for criticizing the judiciary in a Facebook post two years ago amid a deepening family feud. Li Shengwu said in reaction to the ruling that he worried about further suppression of free speech in Singapore. In the 2017 posting, Li wrote “Singapore is very litigious and has a pliant court system” after his father and aunt engaged in a public spat with their older brother Prime Minister Lee over the fate of their family home. The attorney general initiated contempt of court proceedings, and the High Court agreed with prosecutors that Li’s posting “impugns the independence and impartiality of the judiciary.” A copy of Wednesday’s ruling was obtained on Thursday.
4 Water protests: Demonstrators in northern Mexico have burned several government vehicles, blocked railway tracks and set afire a government office and highway tollbooths to protest water payments to the U.S. Mexico has fallen behind in the amount of water it must send north from its dams under a 1944 treaty, but farmers in the northern state of Chihuahua want the water for their own crops. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Thursday that the protests were being fanned by opposition politicians. He said there was enough water to comply with the treaty and support local crops. The protests appeared to be centered in the town of Delicias, Chihuahua, near one of the dams where water is being released to flow northward. Federal forces guarding the dam gates have clashed with protesters in recent weeks.
5 Caning law: The human rights group Amnesty International urged Indonesia on Thursday to abolish caning after two women were struck about 100 times each as punishment for offering prostitution online. The women were caned publicly on Monday in Langsa city after they were found to have violated Shariah law in Aceh province. They were arrested in March along with five alleged sex workers. Amnesty International Indonesia Executive Director Usman Hamid said caning is “a cruel and inhumane practice that causes both physical and mental trauma. It is a punishment that must never be normalized nor tolerated.” Aceh is the only province in Muslimmajority Indonesia that practices Shariah, a concession made by the government in 2001 to end a decadeslong war for independence.
Chronicle News Services