MADRID (DW) - The streets in Madrid and Barcelona saw thousands of protesters participating in a march to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Spanish media reported late on Friday. During the protest march on Friday evening, many women wore purple as they walked down the Gran Via in the center of Madrid. The women carried placards that read: ‘’no is no, anything else is rape” and “we women are not goods.” The protesters also chanted “only yes means yes.” Some of the protesters also demanded the resignation of Irene Montero, Spain’s Equality Minister, who steered a new controversial law, known as the “only yes means yes” law. As a result of gender violence, as many as 1,171 women have died in Spain since 2003, according to the country’s Ministry of Equality. This year, 38 women have been murdered so far.

***
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian police said they had arrested at least four people and carried out nationwide raids on Thursday in investigations into an alleged coup attempt during riots by supporters of defeated far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. Brazilian authorities, led by the Supreme Court, have been cracking down on a small but committed minority of Bolsonaro supporters who refuse to acknowledge leftist President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s election victory and are calling for a military coup.

***
BANGKOK (AP) — A court in military-ruled Myanmar convicted the country’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi of corruption Friday, sentencing her to seven years in prison in the last of a string of criminal cases against her, a legal official said. The court’s action leaves her with a total of 33 years to serve in prison after a series of politically tinged prosecutions since the army toppled her elected government in February 2021. The case that ended Friday involved five offenses under the anti-corruption law and followed earlier convictions on seven other corruption counts, each of which was punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a fine.

***
POIPET, Cambodia (AP) — The search for bodies in the wreckage of a burned-out hotel complex in western Cambodia has concluded with 26 people confirmed dead, a senior official said late Friday. Banteay Meanchey province Governor Um Reatrey said by phone that after 39 hours of rescue and search operations, there were also 57 injured survivors from the fire at the Grand Diamond City casino and hotel in the town of Poipet. Seventeen of the dead were from Thailand, one each from Nepal, Malaysia and China, and six bodies were yet to be identified, he said.

***
CANBERRA (Al-Jazeera) -The Australian Attorney-General’s Department has approved a request to extradite a former U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot to the United States where he faces charges of breaking U.S. arms control laws by engaging in the training of Chinese pilots. Arrested in Australia in October, Daniel Duggan, 54, is accused of money laundering and conspiracy to export defence services to China by instructing Chinese military pilots in how to land on aircraft carriers, according to a 2017 indictment unsealed by a US court in December.

***
LIMA (Reuters) - The appeals chamber of Peru’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the decision to keep former president Pedro Castillo in pre-trial detention for 18 months while he is investigated on charges of rebellion. Earlier this month, Castillo was voted out of office by lawmakers and then arrested for attempting to dissolve Congress. Castillo denied committing the crimes of rebellion and conspiracy in a hearing on Wednesday, stating that his pre-trial detention had “only served to polarize our country”. The legal process, he added, was “nothing more than political revenge”.