Foreign News
Singapore executes man for supplying cannabis
BBC reported that Singapore has executed a man for conspiring to traffic cannabis despite pleas for clemency from his family, activists and the United Nations.
Tangaraju Suppiah, 46, was hanged at Changi Prison at dawn on Wednesday, his family said.
Activists said he had been convicted on weak evidence and had had limited legal access during his prosecution. The authorities said he had received due process and criticised activists for questioning the courts.
Singapore has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws, which it argues are a necessary deterrent to preventing drug crime.
Last year the country executed 11 people on drugs charges, including an intellectually impaired man for trafficking heroin.
On Wednesday, Tangaraju Suppiah’s family had gathered at the prison in the city’s east. “The family said they weren’t going to give up on him right until to the end. It has been such a harrowing experience for them,” anti-death penalty activist Kirsten Han told the BBC on Wednesday. “They still have a lot of unresolved questions about his case, and the evidence against him.”
Singapore’s stringent drug laws and use of capital punishment put it increasingly at odds with other countries in the region, activists say. Its neighbour Malaysia abolished mandatory death sentences earlier this month, saying they were not an effective deterrent to crime. Cannabis has been decriminalised in many parts of the world including in neighbouring Thailand where its trade is encouraged.
On Tuesday, Singapore’s courts had rejected a last-minute appeal from Tangaraju Suppiah’s family against his 2018 conviction.
In recent days they and activists had delivered letters to Singapore’s President Halimah Yacob in a last-minute plea for clemency, while British billionaire Sir Richard Branson had called for a halt of the execution and a review of the case.
“I know that my brother has not done anything wrong. I urge the court to look at his case from the beginning,” the condemned man’s sister, Leela Suppiah, had told reporters on Sunday.
Tangaraju Suppiah was convicted of “abetting by engaging in a conspiracy to traffic” about 1kg (35oz) of cannabis from Malaysia to Singapore in 2013. He was not found with the drugs or during the delivery. But prosecutors said he had been responsible for co-ordinating it, and they traced two phone numbers used by a deliveryman back to him. He claimed he was not the person communicating with others connected to the case. He said he had lost one of the phones and denied owning the second one.
Singapore law mandates the death penalty for drug trafficking and has lesser penalties for couriers.
In Tangaraju Suppiah’s last appeal, the judge agreed with the prosecution that he had been responsible for co-ordinating the delivery, which made him ineligible for a more lenient sentence.
Activists had raised concerns that he had not been given adequate access to a Tamil interpreter and had had to argue his last appeal on his own since his family was unable to secure a lawyer. Singapore authorities say he requested an interpreter only during the trial, and not earlier. They add that he had access to legal counsel throughout the process.
Sir Richard, who had previously criticised the 2022 execution of intellectually impaired Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, said the latest case was “shocking on multiple levels”.
Rebutting his allegations, Singapore’s Home Affairs Ministry accused him of “disrespect for Singapore’s judges and our criminal justice system”. It said that the death penalty was “an essential component” in a multi-pronged approach that had been “effective in keeping Singapore safe and secure”.
The United States military says that two service members have been killed and four medically evacuated following an Iranian missile and drone attack in Jordan.
In a statement shared on Saturday, US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees US military operations in the Middle East, said that one service member remains missing following an Iranian strike on Friday.
“On July 17, two US service members in Jordan were killed in action as US Central Command (CENTCOM) and partner forces defended against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks. Additionally, one service member is currently missing in action,” the statement reads.
“Four American service members were medically evacuated to Jordanian hospitals. They have since been discharged. Other personnel who were evaluated for minor injuries have returned to duty.
“Out of respect for the families, CENTCOM will withhold additional information, including the identities of the fallen warriors, until 24 hours after the next of kin have been notified.”
The statement appears to be the first US confirmation of fatalities resulting from renewed Iranian strikes on US forces, following the breakdown of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that temporarily paused fighting between the US and Israel, and Iran.
Responding to the deaths of the two service members, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said that “their sacrifice only stiffens our resolve”.
CENTCOM later announced that it was launching retaliatory airstrikes against Iran at President Trump’s direction.
[Aljazeera]
A seventh consecutive night of attacks by United States forces on targets across Iran has left 10,000 people without water after a desalination plant was hit, with Iran retaliating by launching another wave of drones and missiles at US-allied Gulf states.
Hamzeh Pour, chief executive of the Hormozgan Water and Wastewater Company, was quoted by the Tasnim news agency on Saturday as saying that a seawater pumping station and a power transformer at the Bunji desalination plant in Jask in southern Iran were “completely destroyed”, depriving 20 villages of water.
Iran’s retaliation also targeted civilian infrastructure, a war crime under international humanitarian law.
In the early hours of Saturday, Kuwait announced the closure of its airspace and said two power and water desalination plants were hit by Iranian attacks. Several Kuwaiti firefighters were wounded while responding to a fire sparked by the strikes, the country’s firefighting force said.
Air raid sirens also sounded repeatedly in Bahrain, where authorities urged residents to seek shelter.
In Jordan, authorities said they intercepted 10 Iranian ballistic missiles.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said its naval forces had targeted a US military fuel pier at Kuwait’s al-Ahmadi port and a US warplane assembly site at Bahrain’s Sheikh Isa Air Base. The IRGC also said it attacked a US base in Azraq in Jordan, claiming to have destroyed two American fighter jets.
The Iranian attacks came after the US military’s Central Command, or CENTCOM, announced it had carried another wave of overnight strikes targeting “surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities” in Iran.
[Aljazeera]
Rescuers are rushing to locate dozens of people missing in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing, after a deadly landslide buried homes in the area, according to Chinese authorities.
The landslide took place around 9:10am (01:10 GMT) on Friday in Chongqing’s Pengshui county, killing eight people, leaving 34 unaccounted for and displacing more than 1,100, reported state media.
Footage shared by China’s CCTV broadcaster showed a huge buildup of rocks and dirt covering part of a residential and commercial street at the bottom of a mountain in the region.
Ten people have been rescued from the debris, including two who are seriously injured, reported China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.
Water, electricity and gas supplies were cut off within a one-kilometre (0.6-mile) radius of the landslide to prevent further disruptions. More than 800 rescuers have gone to the site, reported CCTV.
Authorities said they sent more than 8,000 disaster relief items to Chongqing, including tents, folding beds and family emergency kits.
Pengshui county is located in the southeast part of Chongqing, bordering the provinces of Hubei and Guizhou.
The area where the landslide happened is known for “unpredictable” steep terrain, a local official told a news conference, adding that dangerous rocks remain along the sides of the cliff.
The government has allocated 50 million yuan ($7.36m) in natural disaster relief funds to support the rescue and relief operations and to provide assistance to affected residents, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Emergency Management said.
[Aljazeera]
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