NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
_1 Migrant deaths: At least eight people died after a migrant boat carrying more than 30 people hit rocks close to a small port on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, Spanish rescue services said Wednesday. The boat was one of 17 intercepted in the islands’ waters in the past 24 hours. About 450 people were rescued in the other boats, but one died later. Many were taken to the southwestern coast of Gran Canaria, where nearly 600 people of different origins are being kept. More than 19,000 people fleeing poverty, violence or other circumstances have arrived in Spain’s Canary Islands this year, a 1,000% increase from the same period in 2019. More than 500 have died in the attempt. Around half of the arrivals have been in the past 30 days. _2 “Love jihad”: India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party has approved legislation in the country’s most populous state that lays out a prison term of up to 10 years for anyone found guilty of using marriage to force someone to change religion. The decree for the state of Uttar Pradesh was passed Tuesday and follows a campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindunationalist Bharatiya Janata Party against interfaith marriages. The party describes such marriages as “love jihad,” an unproven conspiracy theory used by its leaders and Hindu hardline groups to accuse Muslim men of converting Hindu women by marriage.
_3 Gate crasher: A driver in a station wagon with white handpainted letters crashed into a gate outside Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office Wednesday but did not get past the barrier. Police said a 54yearold man was in custody over the crash. Police then tweeted that at no point were Merkel or other government workers in danger. The message “You damned murderers of children and old people” was painted on one side of the car, while the other side read, “Stop the politics of globalization.” A similar attack took place in 2014 when a car also crashed into a gate outside Merkel’s office with a message written on the car urging a stop to climate change.
_4 Hacker attack: Denmark’s biggest news agency will stay offline for at least another day following a hacking attack this week and has rejected a ransom demand by hackers to release locked data, the wire service said Wednesday. Ritzau CEO Lars Vesterloekke couldn’t say how big the ransom demand was because those behind the attack had left “a file with a message” that the agency didn’t open. Ritzau, which delivers text and photos to Danish media, said it had transferred its emergency distribution to clients to six live blogs. It was not known who was behind the attack that started Tuesday.
_5 Yemen conflict: A mine in the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia near Yemen exploded and damaged a Malteseflagged, Greekmanaged oil tanker Wednesday, authorities said, the latest incident targeting the kingdom amid its long war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The explosion comes after a cruise missile fired by Houthi rebels struck an oil facility in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. A Saudiled coalition has been battling the Iranianbacked Houthis since March 2015.
_6 Academic freed: Iran has freed Kylie MooreGilbert, a BritishAustralian academic who has been detained in Iran for more than two years, in exchange for three Iranians held abroad for trying to bypass sanctions. MooreGilbert was a Melbourne University lecturer on Middle Eastern studies when she was sentenced in 2018 to 10 years. She is one of several Westerners held in Iran on internationally criticized espionage charges.