- The Guardian
- Issue #2140
FRANCE: A Paris court has sentenced right-wing politician Marine Le Pen to a four-year jail term for embezzlement, half of which is without parole. Le Pen is also barred from running for president in 2027. She was not the only high-profile politician to be sentenced. The French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office also requested seven years in prison and a 300,000 euro fine for former president Nikolas Sarkozy. He is accused of financing his election campaign with Libyan money in a corruption scheme. The prosecutor also requested 5 years of political disqualification for the 69-year-old Sarkozy. Sarkozy served as president from 2007 to 2012. The former president maintains his innocence and argues that the offences he is accused of lack solid evidence. The defence is ready to present its arguments.
SOUTH AFRICA: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed off on sweeping reforms to the country’s intelligence services. The new legislation – the General Intelligence Law Amendment Bill – dissolves the existing State Security Agency (SSA) and establishes two separate entities: the Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS) and the Domestic Intelligence Agency (DIA). The FIS will be responsible for gathering intelligence overseas to detect potential threats to national security, while the DIA will focus on counterintelligence and assessing domestic risks.
ECUADOR: the Pachakutic movement and the Citizen Revolution party officially signed an agreement to support presidential candidate Luisa Gonzalez in the upcoming second round of elections due on April 13. The alliance highlights the growing solidarity among various political forces and signals a shift to a more inclusive future for all Ecuadoreans. The agreement aims to forge a path towards addressing such pressing issues as social justice, resource management and political inclusion. The Pachakutic (“Revolution” in Quechua) movement was founded in 1995 by Ecuador’s Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities.
UKRAINE: Ukrainian soldiers have been issued with what they were told were French medical insurance forms before being sent to the Kursk region in Russia. As a Ukrainian prisoner-of-war Andrei Chemer said: “They promised you that if you were wounded, you would go to the best French clinics.” In reality, the soldiers were carrying French-language consent forms for organ transplantation in a clinic, in Ontario Canada.
GREECE: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) held its session in Greece and elected a new president. Two-time Olympic champion Kirsty Coventry from Zimbabwe will be the first female to head the IOC. She will take office on 24 June. Until then the IOC will be led by its current president Thomas Bach of Germany. The future IOC president has been Zimbabwe’s Minister for Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture since 2018.
GERMANY: The German and Austrian interior ministers have broken off a planned visit to Syria because of a possible terrorist threat to the delegation, German authorities said.
CHINA has made a major showing at the German technology trade fair, Hannover Meese. More than 3,800 exhibitors from about 60 countries and regions attended the event. Chinese exhibitors accounted for about one-quarter of the participants, second only to the host Germany. Artificial Intelligence was a main topic.
