Three journalists have been summoned for questioning by French police for their role in an explosive report detailing how the Macron government knowingly sold arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE for use in Yemen.

Disclose co-founders Geoffrey Livolsi and Mathias Destal, as well as Benoit Collombat of Radio France have been summoned by police for questioning about the revelations contained within the April 15 report published by Disclose who partnered with Radio France, Mediapart, Arte Info, and Konbini.

The report contained a leaked, classified French intelligence report to the president and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly detailing the use of French weapons in Yemen during a defence council meeting on October 3, 2018.

The report proves that Macron’s government deliberately lied about having no knowledge that French arms, including French-supplied CAESAR howitzer artillery, tanks, and laser-guided missile systems, would be used “offensively” in Yemen, in violation of the 2014 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) which entered into force on December 24, 2014.

The journalists argue that the revelations “are of major public interest, that bring to the attention of citizens and their representatives what the government wanted to conceal,” adding that Macron’s decision to pursue them constitutes infringement on freedom of the press and speech in general.  

“We have learned that a preliminary investigation for ‘compromising national defence secrets’ has been launched by the Paris prosecutors,” Disclose said in a statement.

The journalists are due to be questioned by the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI), France’s domestic intelligence agency, in a hearing scheduled for mid-May. The move has been condemned in a statement signed by 36 French press outlets, including Le Monde and AFP.

Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen which has been waged since 2015. Up to 14 million people are at risk of starvation as a result of the ensuing Saudi-led blockade.

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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has expressed horror at the news that 1,000 penis amputations take place in the South American country each year, slamming the shocking stat as “ridiculous and sad.”

Bolsonaro told reporters in Brasilia on Thursday the amputations are carried out “due to a lack of water and soap,” and that the government has to work with men to make them know the dangers of bad hygiene practices.

“When you get to a point like that, you see that we’re really at the bottom of the pit,” the 64-year-old president said, Globo reports.

“We have to find a way out of the bottom of the pit, helping these people by raising awareness, really showing what they have to do, which is good for them, is good for their future, and to avoid getting to that point that is ridiculous, sad for us, that amount of amputations that we have a year.”

A spokesperson from the Brazilian urology society told Reuters the 1,000 figure comes from official data on penis amputations, and that they are carried out to deal with untreatable infections, cancers, and HIV complications.

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There’s a couple of iconic Russian songs you may (or may not) have heard of, but they appear to be particularly fancied by North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un.

Kim, who made his first-ever visit to Russia this week, has a soft spot for three Russian songs, revealed Oleg Kozhemyako, governor of the Far East’s Primorsky Krai. While they may sound a bit retro for Western ears, the tunes have been around in Russia and beyond for at least several decades.

1. Katyusha

Written on the eve of World War II, this is one of the most iconic Russian patriotic songs. Outside Russia, it is still popular in China, North Korea, Mongolia and other countries. ‘Katyusha’ was notably performed by a military brass band upon Kim’s arrival to Vladivostok.

2. Evening in the Harbor

A little known war song, it was composed back in 1941 at which time the Germans were about to encircle Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), starting the bloody 872-day siege of Russia’s second-largest city.

3. Million Scarlet Roses

A great hit by Alla Pugacheva, one of Russia’s best-selling and most-renowned female artist, which she sang during her first and last concert in Pyongyang in 1989.

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A 26-year-old man in possession of improvised maps of and six passes to parliament and assault rifle ammunition was arrested by Sri Lankan authorities overnight.

Local reports say police were responding to a tip-off when they found the 26-year-old carrying several parliamentary passes and a rough map marking out the road route to the parliament. They also found a vehicle which was possibly modified to carry a bomb, although no explosives have been found.

A canine unit was deployed to search for explosives but found nothing. Police recovered a tablet device, three mobile phones, a dozen SIM cards, T-56 assault rifle ammunition, and several credit cards during the raid.

Sri Lanka has deployed thousands of troops to hunt for suspects connected with the horrific Easter bombings. The raid was launched thanks to an anonymous tip-off following the Easter Sunday bombings which killed over 350 people, injuring an additional 520. Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The as yet unnamed 26-year-old suspect is due in court Thursday. Overall, the number of people arrested in connection with the attacks has risen to over 100, and eight of the nine suicide bombers have been named so far.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena asked his defense minister and chief of police to resign Wednesday.

Sri Lankan police arrested a further three people, seizing 21 grenades and six swords during a raid in Colombo, though authorities did not specify whether the raids were directly related to the Easter Sunday bombing investigation.

Police forces from at least six countries are assisting Sri Lankan authorities with their investigations, including Scotland Yard, the FBI, the New Zealand Police, the Australian Federal Police, Danish and Dutch police, and Interpol.

It has also emerged that one of the suicide bombers, Ilham Ahmed Ibrahim, the son of a billionaire spice tycoon, was previously arrested and subsequently released by police.

“It was the suicide bomber of the Cinnamon Grand bomb attack who was released earlier,” Sri Lankan government spokesman Sudarshana Gunawardana said. Ibrahim’s father, Mohamed Yusuf Ibrahim, has been arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting his sons.

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North Korea has warned of a “corresponding response” as it vented anger at the ongoing military drills between the US and South Korea. Pyongyang says such steps simply hamper the reconciliation process.

In a strongly-worded statement issued by the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country on Thursday, Pyongyang blasted the joint air force exercises as “acts of perfidy.”

It added that the maneuvers go against the “trend toward the reconciliation on the peninsula” and threatened the “valuable spark of peace, reconciliation and cooperation” between the two Koreas.

The committee, which oversees inter-Korean affairs, also warned the South Korean authorities “to behave with discretion,” and said the exercises risked north-south bilateral ties.

It finished by saying that such a “military provocation” would garner a “corresponding response,” noting that authorities in Seoul “can never make a complaint” over whatever actions Pyongyang eventually undertakes.

The two-week joint air force exercises, which kicked off on Monday, had been organized as a more low-key alternative to the annual Max Thunder drills usually conducted by the US and South Korea.

It follows a call made by Trump following his first summit with Kim Jong-un last June to suspend the “very provocative” war games after an agreement was reached by both parties to back “complete denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula.

Since then, several military exercises have been either canceled or scaled-back.

However, the negotiations floundered following a second meeting between the two leaders in Vietnam in late February. Back then, both heads of state walked away without securing a deal amid disagreements over the lifting of sanctions on Pyongyang.

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The French president has fallen victim to infamous Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus, who posed as Ukraine’s President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky after his recent landslide victory, a video from the trolling duo claims.

Vladimir ‘Vovan’ Kuznetsov and Alexei ‘Lexus’ Stolyarov released a 15-minute recording of the call on Wednesday with a person they claim is Macron — although the identity of the prankee has not been confirmed.

At one point during the call, the supposed Zelensky says he believes it is time for Ukraine to again “build a dialogue with Russia,” to which Macron replies this is “absolutely right.”

Near the end of the conversation, ‘Zelensky’ says he believes Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko “delayed peaceful resolution” to the conflict in eastern Ukraine “on purpose.”

“I do agree,” the alleged Macron surprisingly responds.

The duo even asked the supposed leader if France would extradite Poroshenko if he fled to France fearing prosecution over corruption allegations. Macron told them he believed France was probably “not the first country [Poroshenko] would like to move to.”

Vovan and Lexus have pulled off multiple high-profile prank phone calls on public figures, including former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, former UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and current US envoy to Venezuela Elliott Abrams.

Macron’s office declined to comment on the recording, but insisted the French leader has had genuine contact with Zelensky since his victory.

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Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is meeting reporters in the aftermath of his first-ever summit with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. The talks took place in the Pacific coast city of Vladivostok on Thursday.

Kim’s first ever state visit to Russia has been shrouded in secrecy and was not confirmed until the very last moment. It was revealed during the summit – by Kim himself – that one of the reasons for him to travel to Russia was to discuss the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Ties between Moscow and Pyongyang were also said to be on the agenda.

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Saudi Arabia’s mass executions are “utterly unacceptable” and “repulsive” for the UK, but it less concerned when it comes to the ongoing arms sales to Riyadh, which continues its military campaign in the impoverished Yemen.

Joining the outrage from the UN, the Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan has issued a strong condemnation of the Saudi kingdom which has just executed 37 people, mostly Shia Muslims. The executions, during which one of them was crucified, were “repulsive” and “utterly unacceptable in the modern world,” Duncan told the House of Commons.

On its part, the EU’s foreign affairs service doubted that the right to a fair trial is respected in Saudi Arabia and said the gravity of the charges made against some convicts was also open to question.

In all, this is not the first time world powers have criticized the human rights record of the Gulf monarchy.

A number of Western states have tried to reprimand Saudi Arabia over the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the detention of opposition activists, but they were generally not so outspoken about selling sophisticated weapons systems to the Gulf Kingdom.

The US is Riyadh’s primary vendor of weapons, followed by the UK, Canada, Spain and other nations across Europe. The UK alone has already licensed $6 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia since the bombardment of neighboring Yemen began in 2015.

Earlier in April, the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) filed a lawsuit against the UK government, questioning the legality of its continued arms sales to the Saudis. The practice must be stopped as British-made jets and bombs have been contributing to a brutal military campaign, which saw 10,000 people killed in Yemen and created a “humanitarian catastrophe,” the group argued.

But London shows no sign of giving in to the demands and even condemns its allies for refusing to fuel the Saudi war machine. A few months ago, UK’s Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said that he was “very concerned about the impact” from the German decision to cancel arms sales to Riyadh and warned that it would cost Berlin around €2.3 billion ($2.5bn) by 2026.

Likewise, France put renewed pressure on Germany to drop its restrictions, with Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire saying, “it is useless to produce weapons through improved cooperation between France and Germany if we are unable to export them.”

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Kim Jong-un spoke about his country’s “strength” as he exchanged weapons as presents with Vladimir Putin during their first-ever meeting in Vladivostok on Thursday.

The Russian president led his North Korean counterpart through the traditional gift-giving ceremony that accompanies landmark international summits, first offering him a set of handmade gilded glasses.

But the highlight was a Russian curved saber that Putin unsheathed as he offered it to the North Korean leader.

As is customary when gifting blades, to avoid bad luck the Russian president included a coin with the sword, which Kim then ‘paid back‘ to him.

Kim Jong-un then did the reverse, apresenting a traditional straight Korean sword to the Russian president, with a coin of his own.

“It represents strength, it represents the soul – mine and that of our people, who support you,” said the North Korean leader.

Putin and Kim spent twice the allotted time during their face-to-face in the Russian Far East, in what was the first ever face-to-face meeting between the two leaders ever.

Pakistani PM Imran Khan minced no words while calling his political opponent ‘madam,’ but the remark didn’t sit well with local netizens who accused their premier of sexism and misogyny.

Imran Khan unloaded on Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, chairman of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), while speaking to a crowd of supporters on Wednesday.

Khan, a former cricket player, apparently tried to add insult to injury as he accentuated Bhutto’s privileged background. The PPP chairman was born to a family of former President Asif Ali Zardari and murdered ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Before joining Pakistani politics, Bhutto preferred to keep a low profile, focusing on finishing his history degree at Oxford University. This year, the 29-year-old politician is running for parliament for the first time.

Footage of Khan attacking Bhutto spread quickly on social media, stirring up quite a backlash.

Some slammed the “poor and misogynist” remark while others even went as far as to call it “fascist.”

As the day progressed, Khawaja Asif, a former defense minister, also joined the online brawl, claiming the jibe represented Khan’s “real language.”

Bhutto himself responded to the insult later in the day, writing, “What was that about small men in big offices?”

However, some netizens gave Khan the benefit of the doubt, arguing it was simply a slip of the tongue.

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