Police: Poison was left on spy’s front door
LONDON — British authorities said on Wednesday that Sergei V. Skripal and his daughter Yulia, the poison victims at the epicenter of a diplomatic crisis between Russia and the West, had been sickened with a nerve agent on the front door of Mr. Skripal’s house.
The announcement narrows the many possibilities of how the Skripals came into contact with the poison.
Detectives will focus their efforts now on Mr. Skripal’s house in Salisbury, England, said Dean Haydon, senior national coordinator for counterterrorism policing, in a news release. They will also, presumably, search for a person who could have delivered the poison.
Mr. Skripal, a former Russian double agent, and his daughter, who had been visiting him from Russia, were found unresponsive on a bench in a Salisbury park on March 4. Prime Minister Theresa May announced eight days later that they had been sickened with Novichok, a lethal nerve agent developed by Soviet scientists in the last years of the Soviet Union, and her government accused Russia of responsibility.
Ghanaians protest deal
DAKAR, Senegal — Thousands of Ghanaians rallied in the streets of their capital on Wednesday to protest a deal that would give the U.S. military an expanded role in Ghana.
As part of the agreement struck last week, the United States would invest about $20 million in equipment and training for the Ghanaian military, carrying out joint exercises with Ghana and using the nation’s radio channels and runways.
Ghanaian officials said the agreement was an extension of a two-decadeslong relationship between the United States and Ghana, a West African nation that has been a regular host of bilateral and multilateral military exercises.
But the deal struck a nerve in Ghana, which is in a region where the expansion of the U.S. military has received increasing scrutiny. In Accra, the capital, more than 3,000 people gathered in the streets to protest the agreement.
Suu Kyi loyalist elected
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar — Myanmar’s parliament on Wednesday elected as the country’s new president a longtime loyalist of Aung San Suu Kyi who is expected to carry on his predecessor’s practice of deferring to her as her nation’s de facto leader.
The election of Win Myint comes as Ms. Suu Kyi’s civilian government struggles to implement peace and national reconciliation, with the powerful military still embroiled in combat with ethnic rebels and under heavy international criticism for its brutal counterinsurgency campaign against the Muslim Rohingya minority.
Gaza-Israel border rallies
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Gaza’s embattled Hamas rulers are imploring people to march along the border with Israel in the coming weeks in a risky gambit meant to shore up their shaky rule, but with potentially deadly consequences.
Beginning Friday, Hamas hopes it can mobilize large crowds to set up tent camps near the border. It plans a series of demonstrations culminating with a march to the border fence on May 15, the anniversary of Israel’s establishment, known to Palestinians as “the Nakba,” or catastrophe.
The group aims to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people for the effort, though it hasn’t been able to get such turnouts at past rallies. Nonetheless, a jittery Israel is closely watching and vowing a tough response if the border is breached.