Top monk says Muslims should be stoned amid unsubstantiated reports of Muslim doctor sterilising Buddhist women.
Muslims in Sri Lanka say they fear new attacks after a top Buddhist monk called for violence against members of the religious minority, claiming a Muslim doctor had sterilised thousands of Buddhist women.
Activists, politicians and members of the Muslim minority said Warakagoda Sri Gnanarathana Thero's speech last week was likely to fan communal tensions, weeks after Buddhist mobs attacked scores of Muslim homes and businesses.
The riots were an apparent response to deadly bombings on churches and hotels on Easter Sunday that killed more than 250 people and were claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) group. Sri Lankan authorities blamed the attacks on two small Muslim groups.
With the country still reeling from the bombings and subsequent riots, Gnanarathana repeated unsubstantiated accusations that a Muslim doctor in the central Kurunegala district had covertly sterilised 4,000 Buddhist women.
Reuters
Narco safe houses, ranches and luxury apartments auctioned in Mexico
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Houses with swimming pools and escape tunnels, a ranch surrounded by hectares of land and a luxury apartment with a grisly history were among the 27 properties Mexico had seized from drug traffickers and others were auctioned on Sunday.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador promised that the proceeds from the auction of properties and land, which had been seized by previous governments, would go to aid marginalized communities in the poor and violent state Guerrero.
The apartments auctioned on Sunday include one of a cartel leader who was killed there and disposed of by his brothers.
“[Buyers] will know that in addition to acquiring a good, they will be also be doing good, that is, they will be helping those who need support because of the situation of poverty and marginalization they suffer,” Lopez Obrador said Friday.
Reuters
Kushner's economic plan for Mideast peace faces broad Arab rejection
RIYADH/AMMAN/CAIRO (Reuters) - Arab politicians and commentators greeted U.S. President Donald Trump’s $50 billion Middle East economic vision with a mixture of derision and exasperation, although some in the Gulf called for it to be given a chance.
In Israel, Tzachi Hanegbi, a Cabinet member close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, described Palestinians’ rejection of the “peace to prosperity” plan as tragic.
Set to be presented by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at a conference in Bahrain on Tuesday and Wednesday, the blueprint envisions a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab economies and is part of broader efforts to revive the Israeli-Palestininan peace process.
“We don’t need the Bahrain meeting to build our country, we need peace, and the sequence of (the plan) - economic revival followed by peace is unrealistic and an illusion,” Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara said on Sunday.
The lack of a political solution, which Washington has said would be unveiled later, prompted rejection not only from Palestinians but in Arab countries with which Israel would seek normal relations.
Reuters Surprise!
Migrants describe overcrowded Mexican detention centers as Trump ratchets up pressure
TAPACHULA, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexico’s immigration centers are becoming increasingly squalid and overcrowded as authorities step up the detention of migrants headed for the United States, with inmates languishing for weeks amid medical neglect, according to detainees, lawyers and rights groups.
Reuters spoke to more than a dozen recent detainees at the Siglo XXI detention center, the country’s largest. They described being held in the facility in Chiapas state on Mexico’s southern border for long periods without information about their cases.
The detainees reported severe overcrowding, sparse water and food, and limited healthcare.
Their accounts were supported by two lawyers representing 26 other inmates, as well as the migration ombudsman at Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission and reports from two migrant rights groups: Fray Matias de Cordova and the Human Rights Observation Mission for the Refugee and Humanitarian Crisis in Southeast Mexico, a collective of 24 aid groups.
Twelve of the detainees told Reuters they were held for at least three weeks in the center, meant to hold people for a maximum of 15 days until their cases are processed.
Deutsche Welle
In Baghdad walls come down, ushering freedom in
Baghdad has been undergoing major changes since the "Islamic State" group was removed from Iraq, and safety returned to the city of eight million. Most of the T-walls erected over the past decade to keep both public and private buildings safe have now been pulled down to reveal parks and green zones. In a major development, the Green Zone housing the parliament, ministries and embassies, which was formerly secured behind fences, walls and checkpoints, was recently opened up to all traffic.
As part of this changing environment, Baghdad has seen the opening of its first women's café, where women can meet without males to accompany them and without wearing the scarf and long abaya that have become so common on the streets. These are, of course, the first things young women remove on entering La Femme café.
"Fathers do not want their daughters going to cafés where men smoke water pipes," says Femme's owner Adra Adel-Abid, 47, describing the situation in many public places in Iraq. She provides the popular nargileh, as the water pipes are called, too, but hers are prepared by a woman, while her daughter, Mays, 20, serves an alcohol-free champagne cocktail and other drinks and snacks.
Even if they have to employ a guard, as is common in public places in Iraq, she will find a female one, says Adel-Abid. "Some men are angry that they are not welcome, and some say we secretly sell alcohol and drugs." But although Femme is located in a high-rise building with a men's gym and restaurants and only one elevator, no men have ventured inside this female sanctuary to date.
Washington Post
As sanctions bite in Cuba, the U.S. — once a driver of hope — is now a source of pain
HAVANA — Just like that, the cruise ships are gone, along with thousands of cash-toting Americans who oohed and aahed — and shopped — amid the crumbling grandeur of Old Havana.
For Cubans, it’s a bitter reversal of fortune. President Barack Obama’s opening of relations here, leading to his historic visit three years ago, inspired hopes of an economic boom, bringing American investment and visitors back to this communist island largely shut off from the United States for more than a half-century. A new crop of restaurateurs, IT entrepreneurs, artists and fashion designers, reveling in a fresh sense of optimism, began building businesses to tap into the seemingly lucrative detente.
But as a deepening frost settles in between the Trump administration and Havana, Cuba is instead confronting its worst economic setback in years.Lines have snaked for hours in front of markets selling rationed meat. The lawn of the Nicaraguan Embassy — a launch point for migrants seeking to enter the United States via Mexico — is overflowing with visa applicants.
NPR
Pickup Truck In New Hampshire Collides With Marine Motorcycle Group; 7 Killed
A pickup truck in rural New Hampshire struck and killed seven people and injured three on motorcycles Friday night. The crash ignited a small fire in a nearby wooded area and left a wreckage of damaged vehicles and the bodies of victims strewn across the highway.
State police said a Dodge pickup truck with an attached flatbed trailer large enough to haul a car was traveling westbound when it plowed into the motorcycles, which were moving eastbound, around 6:30 p.m. Friday, along U.S. 2 in Randolph.
Authorities are still investigating what caused the deadly collision. Some witnesses reported seeing the truck swerving just before it struck the bikers.
The names of the victims have not been released, but police identified the driver as Volodoymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, of West Springfield, Mass., who survived and has not been charged. A number could not be found for Zhukovskyy in public records.
C/Net
NASA's Curiosity rover makes surprising methane discovery on Mars
NASA's Mars rover, Curiosity, has detected the largest amount of methane yet measured during its seven years on the Red Planet. It's a particularly riveting discovery because the methane levels discovered by the rover are about three times higher than previous detections, leading to some speculation the gas may be biological in origin.
A report by the New York Times on Saturday first revealed the curious finding after obtaining an internal email from Ashwin Vasavada, a project scientist on the mission. On Sunday, NASA released a statement confirming the discovery, explaining how Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite of instruments had detected methane at 21 parts per billion units by volume -- much higher than ever before.
Methane is an important molecule for microbes on Earth and its detection on another planet has led to speculation that tiny microbes are (or were) puffing gas out at such a rate that NASA's intrepid rover can spot them.