NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Sudan visit: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Sudan on Tuesday, the most senior U.S. official to visit the African country since last year’s ouster of its autocratic leader, Omar elBashir. Pompeo is the first U.S. secretary of state to visit the African country since 2005, when Condoleezza Rice visited. The visit was meant to show U.S. support for the country’s fragile transition to democracy. Pompeo and Sudanese officials discussed the normalization of ties between Sudan and Israel and the removal of the country from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, officials from both countries said. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, however, urged the Trump administration to separate the normalization from the delisting of Sudan, a government spokesman said.
2 War crimes: A lawyer for Ratko Mladic told a U.N. court in The Hague Tuesday that the former Bosnian Serb military chief may not be mentally fit to take part in an appeal hearing against his convictions for crimes including genocide committed throughout the 199295 Bosnian War and warned that pressing ahead could lead to a miscarriage of justice. Mladic was convicted by a U.N. war crimes tribunal in 2017 and sentenced to life imprisonment for masterminding crimes by Bosnian Serb forces throughout the war that left 100,000 dead, an overwhelming majority of them Bosnian Muslim civilians.
3 Sanctions rejected: The president of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday rejected the Trump administration’s demand to restore all U.N. sanctions on Iran. Indonesia’s ambassador to the U.N., Dian Triansyah Djani, whose country currently holds the rotating council presidency, made the announcement in response to requests from Russia and China to disclose the results of his polling of the views of all countries on the 15member council. All the council members, except the Dominican Republic, said the U.S. administration’s action was illegal because Trump withdrew in 2018 from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers.
4 Navalny poisoning: The Kremlin on Tuesday rejected accusations of involvement in an alleged attack on Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma in a German hospital, a day after doctors said tests indicated that he was poisoned. The politician’s allies say the Kremlin is behind the illness of its most prominent critic, with some demanding an investigation into whether Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved. Navalny, a politician and corruption investigator who is one of Putin’s fiercest critics, fell ill on a flight to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to a hospital in the city of Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing. Over the weekend he was transferred to the Charite hospital in Berlin, where doctors said they have found “cholinesterase inhibitors” in his system.
5 Arrest warrant: A Thai court issued a new arrest warrant on Tuesday for an heir to the Red Bull energy drink fortune, a month after news of the dropping of a longstanding charge against him caused widespread anger. Assistant National Police Chief Lt. Gen. Jaruwat Waisay confirmed that Vorayuth Yoovidhya faces charges of causing death by negligent driving and use of a narcotic substance. Vorayuth is the grandson of Chaleo Yoovidhya, one of the creators of the globally famous Red Bull brand. Forbes puts the family’s net worth at $20 billion. On Sept. 3, 2012, Vorayuth was at the wheel of a Ferrari that struck the back of a traffic policeman’s motorcycle on a main Bangkok road. The officer died at the scene, while Vorayuth drove home. His whereabouts are currently unknown.