World roundup: June 2 2023

Stories from Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Russia, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

June 2, 1098: The army of the First Crusade captures Antioch after an extended siege. They were subsequently besieged themselves by a Muslim relief army.

The Crusaders besieging Antioch, from an illustrated manuscript of French chronicler Sébastien Mamerot's Les Passages d'Outremer (Wikimedia Commons)

June 2, 1896: Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi files a British patent application for his radio telegraphy device, titled “Improvements in Transmitting Electrical impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus therefor.” When it was awarded the following year it became the first patent awarded for a communications system utilizing radio waves.

June 2, 1946: In a national referendum following World War II, the Italian people vote by roughly 54 percent to 46 percent to abolish their monarchy and adopt a republican form of government. This date is annually commemorated as “Festa della Repubblica,” Italy’s national day.

INTERNATIONAL

In today’s global news:

• Worldometer is tracking COVID-19 cases and fatalities.

• The New York Times is tracking global vaccine distribution.

MIDDLE EAST

LEBANON

Hezbollah issued a statement on Friday lambasting a Lebanese military tribunal and its lead investigator for “intentionally offending” the militant group. The tribunal on Thursday charged five people over a shooting in southern Lebanon back in December that killed one United Nations peacekeeper and wounded another. It alleged that all five of them were affiliated with Hezbollah, which the group denied in its Friday comments. Hezbollah’s story is that the peacekeepers were attacked by angry civilians after driving (unintentionally, it seems) into a town that was not located within the UN’s peacekeeping zone. To the extent Hezbollah was involved, the group claims that it stepped in to mediate between the peacekeepers and residents (and the Lebanese army) and then facilitated the handover of one of the five suspects in the incident (the other four are still at large).