An American Airlines pilot arriving in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, was jailed Wednesday after he protested new procedures requiring all arriving US citizens to be fingerprinted and photographed, by making what federal police officers described as an obscene gesture.
Eleven other crew members on the same flight from Miami were refused entry to Brazil and detained after the police said that they had refused to be fingerprinted and behaved in a "derisive" manner. They were ordered to return to the US on the next available flight, which was to leave Sao Paulo on Wednesday night.
The incident heightened Brazilian-American tensions over the new policy that, since Jan. 1, has required that arriving Americans -- and Americans alone -- be photographed and fingerprinted by the police. The policy was implemented in retaliation for increased anti-terror measures in the US that require citizens of all but 27 countries, mostly European, to undergo nearly identical procedures.
PHOTO: REUTERS
At a conference of Western Hemisphere leaders on Monday, Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, personally asked US President George W. Bush to exempt Brazilians from the requirements. He followed that on Tuesday with public criticism of the US procedures, saying to reporters that "if the problem is to fight terrorism, this measure makes no sense" because "we have no culture of terrorism" in Brazil.
The police said that the American Airlines pilot, Dale Hersh, 52, had been charged with "disrespect for authority," an offense that carries a jail term of six months to one year. It was unclear whether he would be allowed to leave the country before facing trial. The US Consulate in Sao Paulo issued a statement saying that American officials were "working with both the federal police and American Airlines to resolve the matter."
American Airlines is one of the biggest air carriers from the US to Brazil and the rest of Latin America.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS