News In Brief

White House condemns Russia crackdown on protesters
AFP, Washington
The White House strongly condemned the arrest of hundreds of anti-corruption protesters in Russia on Monday, in a rare criticism of human rights violations and the Kremlin from Donald Trump’s administration.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer called on Moscow to “immediately release all peaceful protesters” detained in nationwide marches.

Hundreds sick, two dead in Mosul food poisoning
AFP, Baghdad
A mass food poisoning at a camp for displaced Iraqi civilians outside Mosul has left at least two dead and hundreds requiring urgent treatment, officials said Tuesday.
“There are 752 cases of food poisoning and two deaths, a woman and a child” following a meal on Monday night, health ministry spokesman Seif al-Badr told AFP.

ISIS cells in nearly all Indonesian provinces
Reuters, Jakarta
ISIS has a presence in nearly all provinces across Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, the military chief in Jakarta has said. General Gatot Nurmantyo’s comments late on Monday that there are clandestine “sleeper” cells across the sprawling Indonesian archipelago underscored concerns about ISIS’s growing influence in Southeast Asia. “After observation, we see that in almost every province … there are already ISIS cells, but they are sleeper cells,” Nurmantyo told reporters in the capital, Jakarta.

Taliban’s No. 2 denies role in Kabul bombing
AP, Kabul
The Taliban’s second in command and head of the militant Haqqani network has denied any involvement in recent deadly attacks in Kabul and western Afghanistan.
In an audio message sent late Sunday by a Taliban spokesman, Sirajuddin Haqqani condemned the suicide truck bombing in Kabul on May 31 that killed at least 150 people, which was followed by more suicide attacks during a funeral and a bombing near a mosque in Herat province.