CHILE
Nation invited to G20 summit
Chile for the first time has been invited to take part in a G20 summit, Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno said on Thursday. “This recognizes that the world has changed and that emerging countries have a more important role to play,” he told a press conference. He said the June 18-19 summit in Mexico would provide the nation with an opportunity to “participate on the front lines of the economic and financial debate, in the face of the uncertain global economic future.”
MEXICO
‘Miracle cure’ ads banned
The government has moved to ban advertising for the plethora of so-called “miracle cures” for weight loss, sagging body parts and more serious illnesses. The new rules require that any product that makes a therapeutic claim would first have to prove it is listed in the country’s pharmaceutical register. The register requires scientific proof of effectiveness. The new rules greatly increase fines for newspapers or TV stations that run ads for unregistered products. The country’s top medicine safety official said on Thursday that 80 percent of deceptive advertising in the country involves miracle cures, with 274 deceptive products having been identified so far.
MEXICO
More held over trafficking
Authorities have detained three more people and interviewed 15 Irish nationals in a probe into an alleged child-trafficking ring that aimed to pass babies on for adoption. A spokesman for the prosecutors’ office in Jalisco State said on Thursday that two men and one woman had been detained the previous day. Nine people are now being held, after six women were detained in the past week. Ten babies, aged from two months to two years, have also been taken into custody. “Four of them showed signs of sexual abuse,” the prosecutors’ office said in a statement, adding that it was carrying out a separate investigation. The suspects included a taxi driver believed to have transported the children and a 21-year-old woman who was denounced by her family when she tried to negotiate the sale of her two sons, sparking the investigation.
UNITED STATES
Shooter faces 20 years
An Old West gun battle re-enactor in South Dakota who wounded three onlookers when he fired live rounds instead of blanks faces up to 20 years in prison after a plea deal. Paul Doering of Summerset pleaded guilty to a newly leveled charge of tampering on Thursday in federal court in Rapid City. In exchange, prosecutors dropped the original charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Federal Public Defender for the Dakotas Neil Fulton said Doering was “very sorry” people were hurt in what he described as an accident. Doering will be sentenced on April 9.
UNITED STATES
Captain jailed over crash
An Alaska fishing captain who led a crew on the program that spawned the cable TV show Deadliest Catch will serve five years in prison for a fatal crash. The Peninsula Clarion reports 60-year-old Clarence “Ole” Helgevold Jr was sentenced on Wednesday. He was originally charged with manslaughter in January last year when his car crashed with a snowmobile driven by George Larion, who was thrown from the snowmobile and died. Under the terms of an agreement, Helgevold pleaded guilty to reduced charges in May. He will serve four-and-a-half years for criminally negligent homicide and six months for driving under the influence.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese