NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Globe
1 Lawyer detained: A Chinese lawyer who has opposed a government campaign to tear down churches and church crosses faces up to six months in secretive detention after the police detained him and accused him of threatening state security, said Yang Xingquan, a colleague from the Xinqiao Law Firm in Beijing. The lawyer, Zhang Kai, disappeared into custody a week ago while in Wenzhou, a commercial city on the coast of Zhejiang province, where many members of the large and prosperous Christian community have fought the government’s efforts to reduce the presence of churches.
2 Garbage crisis: Lebanese protesters marched into the Environment Ministry in downtown Beirut on Tuesday, staging a sit-in outside the minister’s office and demanding his resignation over the country’s snowballing trash crisis. The group of about 30 protesters from the movement known as “You Stink” sat cross-legged on the floor, clapping and shouting slogans against the minister, Mohammed Machnouk, who was holed up in a nearby office. Angry protests over the government’s failure to deal with the garbage crisis have evolved into the most serious antigovernment demonstrations in Lebanon in years. The protesters seek to challenge an entire political class that has dominated Lebanon since its civil war ended in 1990.
3 Mali attack: A security official in Mali says that suspected Islamic extremists have attacked an army checkpoint in Timbuktu, killing at least two soldiers by slashing their throats. The Malian defense ministry confirmed that the checkpoint was attacked around 3 a.m. and that there were casualties but declined to give additional details. Timbuktu fell under the control of Islamic extremists in 2012 until a French-led military operation ousted them from power the following year though militants have repeatedly attacked since then.
4 ‘Cove’ activist arrested: Ric O’Barry, the 75-year-old activist featured in the 2010 Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove,” was arrested near the site of the dolphin hunt featured in the film, Japn’s Kyodo News reported. Kyodo said the American was taken into custody in the southwestern prefecture of Wakayama near the town of Taiji, after failing to produce a passport. Taiji’s dolphin hunt follows a traditional practice in Japan but is heavily criticized in the documentary. Taiji’s fisherman have held “drive hunts” in which dolphins are corralled into a bay and slaughtered.
5 No immunity: Guatemala’s Congress lifted President Otto Perez Molina’s immunity of office on Tuesday, opening him up to possible prosecution in a widening customs corruption scandal that has rocked his administration and the country’s political system. With all 132 lawmakers present in the 158-seat assembly voting to approve the historic measure, prosecutors are now free to file criminal charges against Perez Molina, and a judge would be able to order his detention. The vote does not remove the president from office, but a judge later granted an order barring him from traveling outside the country.