Nation & World Glance

Moldovan leader outlines Russian ‘plan’ to topple government

CHISINAU, Moldova – Moldova’s president outlined Monday what she described as a plot by Moscow to overthrow her country’s government using external saboteurs, put the nation “at the disposal of Russia” and derail its aspirations to one day join the European Union.

President Maia Sandu’s briefing comes a week after neighboring Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country had intercepted plans by

Russian secret services to destroy Moldova, claims that were later confirmed by Moldovan intelligence officials.

“The plan for the next period involves actions with the involvement of diversionists with military training, camouflaged in civilian clothes, who will undertake violent actions, attack some state buildings, and even take hostages,” Sandu told reporters at a briefing.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly a year ago, Moldova, a former Soviet republic of about 2.6 million people, has sought to forge closer ties with its Western partners. Last June, it was granted EU candidate status, the same day as Ukraine.

Sandu said the alleged Russian plot’s purpose is “to overthrow the constitutional order, to change the legitimate power from (Moldova’s capital) Chisinau to an illegitimate one,” which she said “which would put our country at the disposal of Russia, in order to stop the European integration process.”

Experts found Chilean poet Neruda was poisoned, nephew says

SANTIAGO, Chile – Forensic experts have determined that Chilean poet Pablo Neruda died of poisoning nearly 50 years ago, a family member of the Nobel Prize winner said Monday.

The revelation by Rodolfo Reyes, a Neruda nephew, is the latest turn in one of the great debates of post-coup

Chile. The long-stated official position has been that Neruda died of complications from prostate cancer, but the poet’s driver argued for decades that he was poisoned.

There was no confirmation of Reyes’ comments from forensic experts from Canada, Denmark and Chile who are scheduled to publicly release a report Wednesday on the cause of Neruda’s death.

The public release of the group’s finding has been delayed twice this year, first due to internet connectivity issues of one of the experts and then again because a judge said the panel had yet to reach a consensus.

International forensics experts several years ago rejected the official cause of death as cachexia, or weakness and wasting of the body due to chronic illness – in this case cancer. But at that time they said they had not determined what did kill Neruda.

Death penalty phase begins in trial of NYC bike path killer

NEW YORK – Jurors began hearing testimony Monday to help them decide whether an Islamic extremist who killed eight people on a New York City bike path should get a death sentence, an extraordinarily rare penalty in a state that hasn’t had an execution in 60 years.

Sayfullo Saipov, 35, was convicted last month in the attack. He intentionally drove a truck at high speed down a path along the Hudson River in 2017, running over bicyclists on a sunny morning just hours before the city’s Halloween celebrations.

The same jurors who found Saipov guilty returned to work after a twoweek break to hear from additional witnesses in the trial’s penalty phase. Anything less than a unanimous vote for death will mean Saipov will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Houle said Saipov remains proud, defiant and unrepentant for the lives he ruined and that he remains dangerous, even behind bars. She said he once smashed his prison cell door while screaming about slitting the throats of guards. She told jurors that Saipov smiled when he described his attack to investigators hours afterward because his massacre “made him happy.”

Judge to release parts of Ga. special grand jury report

ATLANTA – A Georgia judge on Monday ordered the partial release later this week of a report by a special grand jury that investigated efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss.

The report’s introduction and conclusion, as well as a section in which the grand jurors expressed concerns that some witnesses may have lied under oath, will be released on Thursday, said Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert Mcburney.

Any recommendations on who should or should not be prosecuted will remain secret for now to protect their due process rights, Mcburney wrote.

Mcburney’s order came three weeks after hearing arguments from prosecutors, who urged the report be kept secret until they decide on charges, and a coalition of media organizations, which pressed for its release. The release is a significant development in one of several cases that threaten legal jeopardy for the former president as he ramps up a 2024 White House campaign. The special grand jury spent about seven months hearing testimony from witnesses including high-profile Trump allies, such as attorney Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and high-ranking Georgia officials, such as Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp.

Key witness testifies about bribing ex-mexico security chief

NEW YORK – A key prosecution witness testified Monday that he delivered millions of dollars in payoffs destined for former Mexican public safety chief Genaro García Luna, though he didn’t directly discuss what the money was allegedly buying: impunity for the infamous Sinaloa cartel.

Former member Jesús “El Rey” Zambada testified at García Luna’s U.S. drug trafficking trial four years after catalyzing the case by airing allegations about García Luna at the trial of Sinaloa kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. García Luna was subsequently arrested; he denies the charges.

Zambada is the latest in a series of ex-cartel members and admittedly corrupt former law enforcement officials to testify against García Luna. The former cartel member echoed descriptions of cocaine shipments by planes, trains and even submarines, abetted by police and officials under García Luna’s oversight – and, Zambada said he was told, by the federal police leader-turned-presidential cabinet member himself.

Zambada described an arm’s-length quid pro quo. He said he made payments to García Luna through an intermediary who told him that the security chief would shield the cartel, which the witness’ brother, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, helped lead.

The relayed message: “He was going to provide protection to my brother. He’s not going to bother him. He was going to let him keep on working just as he had been,” Jesús Zambada testified, through an English-language interpreter.