Blow for Catalans
MADRID: A Spanish Supreme Court judge charged 13 Catalan separatist politicians with rebellion on Friday for their attempts to make the region independent of Spain, dealing a heavy blow to the secessionist movement with an indictment that could put its political elite behind bars for decades.
Judge Pablo Llarena ordered five of the Catalan politicians to be held without bail. Another of the summoned politicians, the ERC party’s Marta Rovira, announced in a letter that she was fleeing the country to live “in exile”.
Analytica searched
THE UK’S privacy watchdog searched the London offices of Cambridge Analytica in the wake of allegations that information on millions of Facebook users was scooped up without their consent, widening a probe that cut the internet giant’s share price by more than 10% this week.
The Information Commissioner’s Office said in a tweet it was“assessing evidence before deciding on the next steps”.
The watchdog is leading the probe with the backing of the EU’S 27 regulators to get to the bottom of this “very serious” allegation.
Strikes tipped scales
MANILA: A Filipino Roman Catholic priest who was held by militants linked to Islamic State last year says air strikes gave the military the crucial edge in crushing a siege by the extremists.
Teresito Soganub said on Friday that his captors forced him and other hostages to gather explosive powder, which the militants turned into improvised bombs during his harrowing 116day captivity in southern Marawi city. Troops rescued Soganub in September before ending the siege, which left more than 1100 combatants and civilians dead.
12 die in car bombing
KABUL: An official said 12 people had been killed and 40 others wounded in a car bombing outside a sport stadium in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.
Aminullah Abed, the chief of the province’s public health department, said the 12 killed and 40 wounded were received at a hospital in Lashkar Gha on
Friday.
The explosion occurred after celebrations over the Afghan new year were winding down and revellers were on their way home, Abed said.
Sole €17.4m winner
STOCKHOLM: A woman in southern Norway was the sole winner of €17.4 million (R252m) in a pan-european lottery, the Norwegian government-owned lottery company said yesterday.
“I can’t really comprehend it yet. It feels so unreal, but I’m really, really happy,” the unnamed woman was quoted as telling the Norsk Tipping lotto company.
The woman hails from the southern county of Aust-agder.
She said she wanted to use the sum to pay off debts and spend a long holiday in a warm, sunny place, like Thailand.
Reinventing Peru
LIMA: New President Martin Vizcarra promised to fight Peru’s corruption head-on as he assumed the office on Friday, vowing to heal the wounds left by a vote-buying scandal that abruptly forced his predecessor out of office.
In his first address, Vizcarra appealed for national unity and urged young Peruvians not to succumb to cynicism. “Don’t lose faith in our institutions,” he said.
Vizcarra will host US President Donald Trump and other Western leaders at the Summit of the Americas in Lima next month.
Whales buried
SYDNEY: The day after a battle by 100 volunteers to save a pod of pilot whales stranded on Hamelin Beach came the task yesterday of burying around 150 carcasses.
Only five of the whales could be saved. Volunteers said as soon as they pushed one whale out to sea it would come back to strand itself on the beach.
A Parks and Wildlife spokesperson said several of the carcasses would be examined by experts to see if they could find a reason for the whales’ behaviour.