The DePaulia takes a look at this week’s international news. Please refer to the colored boxes that match with each story
Green box: A giant rubber duck created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman is towed along Hong Kong’s Victoria Habour Thursday, May 2, 2013. Since 2007 the 54 feet-tall rubber duck has traveled to various cites including Osaka, Sydney, Sao Paulo and Amsterdam.
Blue box: Three more arrests in Boston investigation
Just hours before one of the Boston Marathon suspects and his brother allegedly gunned down a campus police officer, authorities say he exchanged a series of text messages with a friend who’d become suspicious after seeing what looked like a familiar face being flashed on television.
Dias Kadyrbayev, a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, texted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, saying he looked like one of the bombing suspects.
“Tsarnaev’s return texts contained ‘lol’ and other things Kadyrbayev interpreted as jokes such as ‘you better not text me’ and ‘come to my room and take whatever you want,'” an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit.
Those texts set off a series of events that on Wednesday led to Kadyrbayev and his roommate Azamat Tazhayakov, natives of Kazakhstan, being charged with conspiring to destroy emptied fireworks and other evidence linking their friend to the deadly April 15 blasts.
Robel Phillipos, who graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School with Tsarnaev in 2011, was charged with lying to investigators about the April 18 visit to his friend’s dorm room to retrieve the items.
Tazhayakov also told authorities that during a meal about a month before the terror attacks, Tsarnaev informed him and Kadyrbayev “that he knew how to make a bomb.”
That is significant because, before he was advised of his rights not to speak with authorities, the 19-year-old bombing suspect allegedly said that his older brother had only recently recruited him to be part of the attack.
The student visa for Azamat Tazhayakov had been terminated when he arrived in New York on Jan. 20. But the border agent in the airport did not have access to the information in the Homeland Security Department’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, called SEVIS.
Under existing procedures, border agents could only verify a student’s status in SEVIS when the person was referred to a second officer for additional inspection or questioning. Tazhayakov was not sent to a second officer when he arrived because he was not seen as a national security threat.
Under the new procedures, all border agents were expected to be able to access SEVIS by next week.
Orange box: Bangladesh building collapse kills hundreds
Bangladeshi relatives of missing workers in a building that collapsed Wednesday hold pictures of their family members in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, April 28. As of Friday, May 3, Police say that the death toll has surpassed 500. The disaster has brought a lot of attention to lax building codes and corruption within the country.
Purple box: New king in the Netherlands
Millions of Dutch people dressed in orange flocked to celebrations around the Netherlands Tuesday in honor of a once-in-a-generation milestone for the country’s ruling House of Orange-Nassau: after a 33-year reign, Queen Beatrix abdicated in favor of her eldest son, Willem-Alexander.
At 46, King Willem-Alexander is the youngest monarch in Europe and the first Dutch king in 123 years, since Willem III died in 1890. Like Beatrix before him, Willem-Alexander has assumed the throne at a time of social strains and economic malaise.
Although the Dutch monarchy is largely ceremonial, he immediately staked out a course to preserve its relevance in the 21st century.
“I want to establish ties, make connections and exemplify what unites us, the Dutch people,” the freshly minted king said at a nationally televised investiture ceremony in Amsterdam’s 600-year-old New Church, held before the combined houses of Dutch parliament.
“As king, I can strengthen the bond of mutual trust between the people and their government, maintain our democracy and serve the public interest.”
Red box: Google recognizes Palestine
Google is de facto recognizing a state of Palestine – at least on its local home page in the Palestinian territories.
Google spokesman Nathan Tyler said Friday, “We’re changing the name ‘Palestinian territories’ to ‘Palestine’ across our products.”
He said Google consults with a number of sources and authorities when naming countries and is following the lead of several international organizations.
The move comes after a U.N. decision last year upgrading the Palestinians’ status to “non-member observer state.”
Israel says Palestinian statehood should be reached through negotiations, not unilateral moves.
Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said “Google is not a diplomatic entity which begs the question why are they getting involved in international politics and on the controversial side.” Google has a large research and development center in Israel.
U.N spokesman Farhan Haq said that after the upgraded status, official documents also refer to the area as “Palestine.”