War crimes
SARAJEVO – In the 1990s he was the burly, brash General leading nationalist Bosnian Serbs towards a seemingly sweeping victory in Bosnia’s war. Two decades later, he was reduced to an ailing old man awaiting judgment on genocide charges in a UN court. It will issue its verdict for Ratko Mladic, 74, in one of the highest profile war crimes to date.
Deadliest month
MEXICO CITY – There were more murders in October in Mexico than in any month over about 20 years, according to official data, in the latest grim milestone in 2017, a year on course to register the highest homicide tally since modern records began. The data, published by Mexico’s Interior Ministry on Monday, showed there were 2371 murder investigations opened in October.
Man charged
WASHINGTON – A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted Sayfullo Saipov on terrorism and murder charges stemming from last month’s truck attack in Lower Manhattan in which eight people were killed, the US Justice Department said in a statement. Mr Saipov was arrested immediately after the October 31 attack in which he ploughed a truck down a New York City bike lane and has been in federal custody.
Nuclear incident
MOSCOW – Russia’s meteorological service said it had measured pollution of a radioactive isotope at about 1000 times normal levels in the Ural mountains, the first official Russian data supporting reports that a nuclear incident had taken place. The data back up a report by the French nuclear safety institute IRSN, which said the cloud of radioactive pollution indicated some kind of leak had taken place at either in Russia or Kazakhstan.
Child soldiers
WASHINGTON – A group of about a dozen US State department officials have taken the unusual step of formally accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of violating a federal law designed to stop foreign militaries from enlisting child soldiers, according to internal documents reviewed by Reuters.
Bomber kills 50
YOLA, Nigeria – A suicide bomber killed 50 people in northeastern Nigeria on Tuesday in an attack on a mosque which bore the hallmarks of a faction of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. The bombing in Mubi in Adamawa state was one of the deadliest in Nigeria’s northeast since President Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015.
Bank heist
NAIROBI – In a heist reminiscent of a Hollywood movie, Kenyan robbers spent months tunnelling into the bowels of a bank located opposite a police station and stole the equivalent of half a million dollars, police said on Tuesday. Police said they had arrested two men and one woman over the robbery but had not recovered the 50 million Kenyan shillings ($F1m).
