Pilot whales massacred in Faroe Islands
German newspaper Bild reports that just 10 days after the brutal massacre of 1,428 dolphins, a new slaughter took place in the Faroe Islands, where 52 pilot whales were killed. The so-called ‘Grindadrap’, the bloody hunt for cetaceans on the shore, is a centuries-old tradition, linked to food needs but also to ancient rituals. Environmentalists have been calling for its suppression for years. John Hourston of the “Blue Planet Society” has asked the EU, Denmark and the UK to stop the massacre and told Bild, “This horrific cruelty and unsustainable slaughter must end now!”
Former Catalan leader arrested in Sardegna
Former President of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont was arrested by police upon his arrival at Alghero airport Thursday evening on the basis of a European arrest warrant issued by the Spanish authorities for crimes against national public order and security. According to the daily El País, the former president of Catalonia will know his fate later today when a judge will decide whether to release him or order his extradition to Spain. In Alghero, the only Italian city of Catalan culture and language, Puigdemont had to participate in a meeting with the Sardinian autonomist movement and meet the president of the region, Christian Solinas, and the president of the regional council, Michele Pais.
Life sentence for Carlos the Jackal confirmed
Carlos the Jackal, the leftist militant who carried out attacks across the globe in the 1970s and 1980s, had the life sentence he had been given for a deadly grenade attack on a Paris shop in 1974, confirmed on Thursday. Carlos was found guilty in 2017 over a grenade attack in 1974 on a Champs Elysees shop that killed two people and injured 36. Carlos, now aged 71, is already serving two other life terms and has lost appeals against them.
Germany: election candidates spar in final TV debate:
Representatives from all seven of Germany’s main parties squared off in the final television debate, three days before Sunday’s vote, the outcome of which seems unpredictable. The debate took place with a final opinion poll indicating the vote would be too close to call, and potential coalition options wide open. The latest numbers compiled for broadcaster ZDF on Thursday put the SPD ahead on 25%, the CDU/CSU close behind on 23%, the Greens third at 16.5% followed by the FDP on 11%, the AfD on 10%, and the Left at 6%. Whatever happens, forming a government could be a process of lengthy negotiations and uneasy compromise.
US Haiti envoy quits over ‘inhumane’ deportations
The US special envoy for Haiti has resigned in protest over the deportation of Haitian migrants. The decision to return migrants fleeing an earthquake and political instability was “inhumane”, senior diplomat Daniel Foote said in a damning letter. Last weekend, the US started deportation flights from a Texas border town, where about 13,000 migrants had gathered under a bridge. They have been waiting in a makeshift camp in temperatures of 37OC. Local officials have struggled to provide them with food and adequate sanitation. Since Sunday, the US has returned to Haiti 1,401 migrants from the Texas camp on the border with Mexico.
‘COVID pandemic will end in a year’
The coronavirus pandemic will end in a year. This is the forecast by Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, the biotechnology company that produces the homonymous COVID vaccine. He told the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung, that “by the middle of next year” there should be sufficient doses of vaccines so that the entire world population can be immunised. “We will end up in a situation similar to that of the flu: you can get vaccinated and have a good winter, or you don’t and you risk getting sick and maybe even ending up in hospital.” Asked whether this means that we will return to normal in the second half of 2022, Bancel said: “As of today, in a year, I presume”.
One killed, 12 injured in Tennessee shooting
Police in the US state of Tennessee say that one person was killed and 12 others wounded in a mass shooting at a grocery store, about 56 km east of the city of Memphis. The shooter, a male, died at the scene from a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound.
