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Cuba says it shot dead four people on US-registered speedboat
Four people shot dead by Cuban border guards in a US-registered speedboat were Cuban nationals living in the United States, Cuba’s government said.
In a statement posted online, Cuba’s interior ministry said that the speedboat’s passengers – the four who were killed and six others who were wounded, also Cuban citizens – opened fire on a coast guard vessel that approached them near an island off the country’s northern coast on Wednesday.
The 10 individuals, some with previous criminal records, were armed and intended to “carry out an infiltration for terrorist purposes” the statement said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was also investigating the “highly unusual” incident
Cuba’s interior ministry identified the six surviving passengers, who have since been detained, and one passenger who was killed.
They added that most of them “have prior records involving criminal and violent activity”.
Handguns, assault rifles and improvised explosive devices were recovered on the speedboat, according to the statement, along with other tactical gear.
The interior ministry also identified an eleventh person they said had been arrested and had confessed to being part of the alleged plot.
In an earlier statement posted on X, the ministry said the Florida-registered vessel – with the registration number FL7726SH – was detected near Cayo Falcones, in the country’s central Villa Clara province on Wednesday morning.
When a Cuban boat carrying five members of the ministry’s border guard approached the vessel for identification, “the crew of the violating speedboat opened fire” and wounded the Cuban commander, the statement said.
“As a consequence of the confrontation, as of the time of this report, four aggressors on the foreign vessel were killed and six injured.”
Those injured were evacuated and given medical assistance, the statement added.
Before the Cuban government released some of the passengers’ identities, Rubio confirmed the boat was not carrying US government personnel and that an investigation was ongoing to “clarify” the event and what the passengers were doing in the area.
Rubio, spoke from Saint Kitts and Nevis, where he had travelled to meet with Caribbean leaders amid the Trump administration’s push to ramp up pressure on Cuba’s government, as well as other regional issues.
“We’re going to find out exactly what happened, who was involved, and we’ll make a determination on the basis of what we find out,” he told reporters.
He vowed that US investigators would move “quickly” to gather the key facts, and that the US Coast Guard has travelled to the “vicinity” of the attack.
But he added that the US would not rely on information provided by the Cuban government, and that Washington would independently verify the facts of the case.
“It is highly unusual to see shootouts on the open sea like that. It’s not something that happens everyday,” Rubio said.
The incident comes amid increased tensions between the US and Cuba, which is facing a deepening fuel crisis that has been worsened by the US blocking oil shipments from Venezuela, a long-standing ally in the region, to the island.
The first Cuban interior ministry statement alluded to these tensions, saying that “in the face of current challenges, Cuba reaffirms its determination to protect it territorial waters” and safeguard its sovereignty.
On Wednesday, the US Treasury said it would ease some small private sector transactions, including oil sales, to “support the Cuban people, for commercial and humanitarian use”.
The incident also happened one day after Cuban-American groups in Miami commemorated the 30th anniversary of the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, which killed four people.
Wednesday’s incident sparked Florida lawmakers and state to call for an investigation and to criticise the Cuban government.
Florida Congressman Carlos Gimenez, a Cuban-American former mayor of Miami, said he would demand an investigation into what he called a “massacre”.
James Uthmeier, Florida’s attorney general, said he would direct local law enforcement to investigate the incident.
“The Cuban government cannot be trusted, and we will do everything in our power to hold these communists accountable,” he said.
In the US Senate, Florida Republican Rick Scott, demanded “a full investigation into this deeply concerning situation and to determine what happened.”
“The Communist Cuban regime must be held accountable!” he added.
[BBC]
The head of Turkiye’s football refereeing body and four other officials have been placed in pretrial detention by a court as part of a corruption investigation, the state news agency Anadolu reports.
Ferhat Gundogdu, head of the Central Referees Committee, and six others appeared before a judge over allegations of manipulation of the referee administration process, Anadolu said on Saturday.
They appeared on Friday before a judge at Istanbul’s Caglayan courthouse on several charges, including forgery of official documents, breach of trust and illegal acquisition of personal data, the report said.
The judge remanded five people in custody and granted the other two conditional release, Anadolu said.
It was the latest scandal to shake football in Turkiye, coming exactly a year after the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) suspended 149 referees on charges of illegal betting.
On Thursday night, police from the illegal betting and sports crime unit also detained Yasin Kol, a referee from Turkiye’s top-flight Super Lig, as well as an assistant referee, media reports said.
Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said prosecutors are examining claims about “interference in the processes of referee classification, assignments, scoring and appointments as well as the exams on rules”.
During raids on Tuesday, police searched the VAR room at TFF’s headquarters in Istanbul. Observers said the investigation was likely linked to last year’s betting scandal and would have implications for the federation.
“It does seem to be a continuation of 2025, and it looks like it will continue further,” sports journalist Ayhan Sensoy told the AFP news agency.
Sensoy, who wrote a 2024 book on the issue called The Gambling Pit, said it was unlikely that federation bosses “have any chance of staying in office”.
So far, the TFF has not directly addressed the arrests as its top officials are due to fly home on Saturday after attending Friday night’s Belgium-Turkiye UEFA Nations League clash in Liege, which Turkiye lost 3-0.
[Aljazeera]
A car has crashed into a crowd of rugby league supporters in the eastern Australian city of Newcastle, injuring 10 people, including three children.
New South Wales police said on Saturday that two of the injured – a five-year-old girl and a 67-year-old man – were in a critical condition and the other eight were in stable condition in hospital.
Police said they had arrested the 18-year-old man driving the vehicle and were investigating what happened. They said the crash was not believed to be related to “terrorism”.
The crowd had gathered to farewell the local rugby league side, the Newcastle Knights, ahead of their grand final against the Sydney Roosters on Sunday.
Newcastle Lord Mayor Gavin Morris said the driver, a rugby league fan, had lost control of his vehicle and had been taken into custody.
“He was revving the car, he was excited, he was a supporter, he was there for the joy of the moment,” Morris told the national broadcaster ABC.
“Somehow he lost control of the car … and he’s gone into the crowd,” he added.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “My thoughts are with everyone injured or involved in the horrible incident this morning in Newcastle.”
“Rugby league brings people together, and this should have been a weekend of excitement and pride for Newcastle fans,” he wrote in a social media post.
[Aljazeera]
Polls have opened in Latvia for an election taking place against the backdrop of perceived security threats from Russia and a nationwide cost-of-living squeeze.
Saturday’s vote is the first electoral test for Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs after coming to power in May this year when his predecessor resigned due to a backlash from stray drone incursions from Ukraine.
Kulbergs, whose right-wing United List party is currently polling at about 20 percent, is expected to hold onto his position, but the decline of two allies in his current coalition means he is set for a complicated negotiation over the makeup of any future government.
Polls opened at 05:00 GMT and will close at 17:00 GMT. The results are not expected to change Latvia’s pro-European and pro-Ukrainian course.
About 1.5 million people are eligible to vote in the country’s 11th parliamentary election since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Latvian politics are highly fragmented, with parties rarely seeing above 20 percent vote share and coalitions being the norm.
This year, 14 electoral lists are contesting the election, but polls indicate only seven are likely to enter parliament, with the rest expected to fail to meet the minimum 5 percent vote threshold.
Rising living costs, low wages, strains on the healthcare system and long-term population decline have all featured prominently in campaign debates.
Most parties in Latvia are pro-Ukraine; however, the populist Sovereign Power party – which says it wants Ukraine to win but argues money spent supporting Kyiv would be better spent at home – looks likely to become the country’s second-biggest party, with more than 9 percent of the vote. Most other parties have ruled out forming a coalition with Sovereign Power.
Latvia First, a pro-Ukraine and populist nationalist party currently polling at about 9 percent, could be a potential coalition partner for PM Kulbergs.
The Progressives, a pro-European social democratic party, are polling at 6 percent.
Ethnic Russians make up roughly one in four Latvian citizens, but their vote, which has traditionally been cast along identity-based lines, looks set to be made according to economic and social issues.
Latvia is the poorest of the Baltic states, and it has sharply increased its defence spending since Russia invaded Ukraine, now allocating nearly 5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to defence.
[Aljazeera]
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