WORLD BRIEFS
3 women, 4 kids killed in Pakistan strike on Iran
TEHRAN—At least three women and four children were killed on Thursday in a missile attack by Pakistan on Iran’s southeast border region, Iranian state media reported. “Pakistan attacked an Iranian border village with missiles,” state television said, quoting Alireza Marhamati, deputy provincial governor of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province. The attack targeted a village near the city of Saravan, on the border with Pakistan, he noted. Iran’s Mehr news agency had earlier reported “drone and missile attacks” in the restive region, saying “several” people were injured. The missile strike took place two days after Iran carried out strikes against “terrorist” targets in Pakistan which left at least two children dead. On Wednesday, Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran targeted an “Iranian terrorist group” in Pakistan. He said the strikes were in response to deadly attacks in Iran’s southeast by the jihadist group Jaish al-Adl, a group formed in 2012 and blacklisted by Tehran as a “terrorist” organization. —AFP
US bans former Guatemala president from entry
WASHINGTON—Washington on Wednesday designated former Guatemalan president Alejandro Giammattei who left office earlier this week as ineligible to enter the United States due to his involvement in corruption. Giammattei has been accused of propping up the attorney general who spearheaded a judicial campaign against the country’s new, antigraft president, Bernardo Arevalo. The designation means Giammattei is “generally ineligible for entry” into the United States for “involvement in significant corruption,” including accepting “bribes in exchange for the performance of his public functions” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. Such actions “undermined the rule of law and government transparency,” Miller said. “The United States has made clear that it stands with Guatemalans who seek accountability for corrupt actors,” he added. The ban extends to three of Giammattei’s adult children and comes the same day as the State Department slapped sanctions on Guatemala’s former energy minister Alberto Pimental Mata for involvement in contract bribery schemes. The attorney general under Giammattei’s government, Consuelo Porras, as well as senior prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche and Judge Fredy Orellana were at the forefront of efforts to stop reformist Arevalo from taking office after winning the general election last summer. —AFP
Japan man gets death for crime committed as a minorTOKYO—A Japanese court on Thursday sentenced to death a man who was a minor at the time of his crime three years ago, in the first capital punishment case since the country lowered the legal age of adulthood, public broadcaster NHK and other media said. Yuki Endo was 19 years old in 2021 when he stabbed the parents of a love interest and set fire to their home in Yamanashi prefecture, west of Tokyo, according to the reports. It was the first death sentence to be given since Japan lowered the legal age of adulthood to 18 from 20 in April 2022, the reports said. Japan and the United States are the only Group of Seven (G7) nations that carry out capital punishment by methods including hanging in Japan and lethal injection in the United States. Unlike in the United States where execution dates are set in advance and made public, inmates in Japan are notified on the morning of their execution. The UN Committee against Torture has criticized Japan for “the psychological strain” on inmates and their families. —Reuters
