Foreign News
Record number of people executed for drug offences in 2023
At least 467 people were executed for drug offences in 2023, a new record, according to Harm Reduction International (HRI), an NGO that has been tracking the use of the death penalty for drugs since 2007.
“Despite not accounting for the dozens, if not hundreds, of executions believed to have taken place in China, Vietnam, and North Korea, the 467 executions that took place in 2023 represent a 44% increase from 2022,” HRI said in its report, which was released on Tuesday.
Drug executions made up about 42 percent of all known death sentences carried out around the world last year, it added.
HRI said it had confirmed drug-related executions in countries including Iran, Kuwait and Singapore. China treats death penalty data as a state secret and secrecy surrounds the punishment in countries including Vietnam and North Korea.
“Information gaps on death sentences persist, meaning many (if not most) death sentences imposed in 2023 remain unknown,” the report said. “Most notably, no accurate figure can be provided for China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Thailand. These countries are all believed to regularly impose a significant number of death sentences for drug offences.”
International law prohibits the use of the death penalty for crimes that are not intentional and of “the most serious” nature. The United Nations has stressed that drug offences do not meet that threshold.
Singapore has drawn international criticism after resuming the use of the death penalty in March 2022, following a two-year hiatus during the pandemic.
Some 11 executions, carried out by hanging, took place that year, and at least 16 people had been hanged as of November 2023, according to Human Rights Watch.
Among those executed was Saridewi Djamani, a Singaporean woman who was convicted of drug trafficking in 2018. She was the first woman to be executed in the city-state for almost 20 years.
“Singapore reversed the COVID-19 hiatus on executions, kicking its death row machinery into overdrive,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch said in the organisation’s annual report. “The government’s reinvigorated use of the death penalty merely highlighted its disregard for human rights protections and the inherent cruelty of capital punishment.”
Some countries have moved to reform their death penalty regimes in recent years with Malaysia ending the mandatory death sentence, including for drugs, and Pakistan removing the death penalty from the list of punishments that can be imposed for certain violations of its Control of Narcotics Substances Act.
Still, in other countries, defendants continued to be sentenced to death for drug offences.
HRI said such confirmed sentences last year increased by more than 20 percent from 2022. About half of those were passed by courts in Vietnam and a quarter in Indonesia.
At the end of 2023, some 34 countries continued to retain the death penalty for drug crimes.
In Singapore, there are just over 50 people on death row with all but two convicted of drug offences, according to the Transformative Justice Collective, a Singapore-based NGO that campaigns against the death penalty.
On February 28, Singapore hanged Bangladeshi national Ahmed Salim. He was the first person convicted of murder to be hanged in the city-state since 2019.
“Capital punishment is used only for the most serious crimes in Singapore that cause grave harm to the victim, or to society,” the Singapore Police Force said in a statement.
(Aljazeera)
US authorities have found debris from a medical transport aircraft that went missing with six people on board.
The Federal Aviation Administration told the BBC it had lost contact with the Gulfstream G-100 plane just after 01:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Saturday, while it was travelling from Bermuda to Boston, Massachusetts.
The search for survivors continues off the coast of Nantucket, a Massachusetts island, the US Coast Guard said.
Authorities have notified the next of kin of those on the flight, four Canadian nationals and two Bermudian nationals.
“Search crews located a debris field confirmed to be from the aircraft off the coast of Nantucket,” the US Coast Guard said in an update on Saturday night. It added that ships, helicopters and planes were involved in searches that would through continue the night.
The plane departed from Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport at 23:40 local time, according to flight data from FlightAware, and was due to land at Boston’s Logan International at 01:30 EDT (05:30 GMT).
According to the tail number released by the Coast Guard, the plane belonged to Latitude Air Ambulances, a company that provides international medical flights for patients returning home.
Among those on board were two pilots and two medical staff, both Canadian, Clarence Togeretz, director of flight operations at Latitude, told CBC News.
The crew flew to Bermuda to collect a patient and their relative, who are not Canadian, Togeretz said.
FlightAware’s tracker shows the aircraft significantly dropped in altitude before its communications went dark, plummeting from around 7,300m (24,000ft) to 3,300m (11,000ft).
Radio transmissions shows trouble with communications between the air traffic controller and the pilot, the Boston Globe reported based on transmissions provided by LiveATC.net.
“You’re coming in blind? Is that what you said?,” the air traffic controller asked. “Are you declaring an emergency, or no?”
The pilot’s response was inaudible.
“You’re coming in a little weak so I didn’t hear what your response was, if you were declaring an emergency or not,” the air traffic controller said, according to the Globe.
The air traffic controller later confirmed the pilot had declared an emergency.
An area fire dispatcher asked emergency crews just after 01:00 EDT to prepare to meet a plane with an “electrical issue”.
The dispatcher later said “the aircraft has lost radio and radar”.
The Coast Guard said it would provide an update on Sunday morning local time.
[BBC]
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]
Former first lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa arrested by CIABOC
U.S. Navy ship USS Tulsa arrives in Colombo for replenishment visit
Smriti Mandhana appointed India captain across formats
Ronaldo apologizes for Portugal walkout; says Jesus broke promise
Showers in the Western, Sabaragamuwa, Central, Uva, North-western and Southern provinces and in Anuradhapura and Mannar districts
Fuel crunch looms
‘Dates have the highest sugar content to fight Coronavirus’
Sunday Island 27 December – Headlines
#SundayIsland 17th December – Headlines
Sunday Island – 28th March
Sunday Island Headlines – 21 March
Sunday Island – 21st February – Headlines
-
News7 days agoUS-assisted ‘Ice’ detection: NPC to examine IGP’s move to transfer drug-busting team
-
Editorial6 days agoColombo Port drug bust: The plot thickens
-
Editorial7 days agoDrug busting, transfers and trust deficit
-
Features4 days agoThe first woman in the foreign service or Ceylon Overseas Service it was then called
-
News7 days agoSri Lankan facing death penalty in Saudi Arabia: Mano G appeals to Crown Prince
-
Editorial5 days agoFuelling discontent and protest
-
News3 days agoGeneva takes up Sallay’s case and govt. ignores opportunity to answer accusations
-
Latest News4 days agoTharindu Rathnayake, bowlers secure Asian Games Bronze for Sri Lanka