JORDAN HANGS 15 CONVICTS IN RARE MASS EXECUTION
AMMAN: Jordan hanged 15 death row prisoners including convicted “terrorists” at dawn on Saturday, its information minister said, in a further break with a moratorium on executions it observed between 2006 and 2014. Ten of those put to death had been convicted of terrorism offenses and five of “heinous” crimes including rape, Mahmud al- Momani told the official Petra news agency. The attorney general for Amman district, Ziad al- Dmour, said the executions represented “a clear message to anyone who tries to undermines the security of the nation.” Amnesty International, however, expressed shock at the hangings of 15 prisoners— the largest number to be put to death on a single day in Jordan.
MEXICAN POLICE FREE 31 CUBANS HELD CAPTIVE IN TOURIST AREA
MEXICO CITY: Federal police in Mexico’s Riviera Maya resort area freed 31 Cubans being held by gunmen in a house, authorities said Saturday. The Cuban migrants said masked gunmen held them in the home near the Caribbean coast demanding money the Cubans did not have. Police received multiple reports on the situation before moving in to free the 22 Cuban men and nine Cuban women, said Mexico’s National Public Safety Board. The Cubans, who did not have Mexican residency, were taken by state authorities for health checks.
THOUSANDS FLEE CLASHES BETWEEN SYRIA ARMY, IS
MANBIJ, Syria: Tens of thousands of Syrian civilians have fled ferocious fighting between Russian- backed regime forces and Islamic State group jihadists over the past week. The fighting over the past week has sparked an exodus of “more than 30,000 civilians, most of them women and children,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said Saturday. Most of the displaced went to areas around Manbij, held by the US- backed Syrian Democratic Forces ( SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters also fighting IS. An AFP correspondent in Manbij saw dozens of families speeding towards the relative safety of the town on motorcycles and in small buses and cars.
SRI LANKA REJECTS UN CALL FOR FOREIGN JUDGES IN WAR PROBE— GOVT
COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has rejected a fresh appeal from the United Nations to allow international judges to investigate alleged war- era atrocities, vowing to not prosecute soldiers. The UN on Friday criticized Sri Lanka’s “worryingly slow” progress in addressing its wartime past, urging the government to adopt laws allowing for special hybrid courts to try war criminals. In his first remarks since the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva handed down a new report on Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena rebuffed calls for international judges to probe abuses committed during the island’s 37- year civil war. At least 100,000 people were killed during the separatist war between government forces and rebels from the Tamil Tigers group, which officially ended in 2009.