World Tour: Former Pakistan prime minister sentenced to prison

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour. Onize Ohikere is in Brussels, Belgium this week for World Journalism Institute Europe…so World Radio reporter Mary Muncy helped write this report.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: This week’s global roundup starts in Pakistan, where former Prime Minister Imran Khan was sentenced Saturday to three years in prison… more than a year after he was ousted.

SOUND: Khan supporters protesting.

Some of his supporters took to the streets on Sunday chanting, “We want freedom.”

The court says Khan concealed assets after selling state gifts while in power. If the ruling stands, it would bar the former prime minister and cricket star from running for public office again.

SHOAIB SHAHEEN: Speaking Urdu.

A lawyer from Khan’s legal team says that the charges are politically motivated… and that they will appeal the conviction.

Now moving to India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces a no-confidence motion.

Some parliament members say he’s ignoring violence in the northeastern state of Manipur… where ethnic clashes broke out in May.

Since then, mobs have torched homes and buildings, massacred civilians, and driven tens of thousands of people from their homes.

KIM NEINENZ: Speaking Hindi

This woman says she fled to a refugee camp in May after her neighborhood was burned. She was nine months pregnant at the time.

Parliament members who supported the no-confidence vote say they believe it will force Modi to address the situation.

SOUND: Lebanon protest.

In Lebanon, hundreds of people marched on the capital to mark the third anniversary of a blast that killed around 200 people.

Hundreds of tons of highly explosive chemicals had been shipped to Lebanon in 2013… They were stored improperly at a port warehouse until they exploded.

SOUND: Lebanon protest.

Marchers protested over an investigation into the blast that stalled because of political and legal hurdles. The investigation was suspended for over a year… after the lead investigator faced several lawsuits—mainly from politicians he had summoned to testify.

He reopened the investigation in January.

Now to Ethiopia, where the country declared a state of emergency Friday… after days of fighting between the military and local armed fighters in one of the country’s most populous regions.

TEMESGEN TIRUNEH: Speaking Amharic.

The director of Ethiopia’s national intelligence service says here that the militia is trying to dismantle the regional government… and then the federal government.

Declaring a state of emergency gives the military the power to impose curfews, restrict movement, ban weapons and public gatherings… and make arrests and conduct searches without warrants.

SOUND: 3… 2... 1… Release release release.

We end today’s world tour in space. The first mother-daughter duo is headed to the edge of space on a Virgin Galactic flight early this month.

Keisha Schahaff (KEY-sha SHA-haf) is from the Caribbean island of Antigua. She won two tickets in a draw that raised funds for the non-profit Space for Humanity.

Her 18-year-old daughter, Anastatia Mayers, will accompany her to space.

ANASTATIA MAYERS: I think every time I look at the stars, it almost feels like I have a place in the universe. It reminds me that, like, everything happens for a reason, nothing happens without consequences and those consequences lead to whatever destined future you have.

The third passenger on the flight will be 80-year-old Jon Goodwin, a former Olympian and the second person with Parkinson’s disease to go to space.

The three will board a plane attached to the mothership. They’ll ride with the mothership for about an hour until it detaches and the plane fires a rocket motor to make the final push to the edge.

When they reach the highest point of the flight, they’ll be able to leave their seats and float around the cabin for a few minutes before returning to Earth.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere.

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