MEXICO
Protest over energy reform
Tens of thousands of people marched in Mexico City on Friday to protest constitutional reforms pushed through by President Enrique Pena Nieto that open the oil and gas industry to foreign investment. An estimated 65,000 people gathered for the protest in the main square, an official at the Secretariat of Public Safety said. About 2,500 police officers were deployed, but there were no incidents of violence, the official said. The march was organized by the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution. The reforms were approved in congress and ratified by a majority of states late last year.
UNITED STATES
Obama to visit Saudi
President Barack Obama plans to travel to Saudi Arabia next month on a mission to smooth tensions with Riyadh over policy on Iran’s nuclear program and the civil war in Syria, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Obama is preparing to meet with King Abdullah for a summit, the paper said, citing unnamed Arab officials briefed on the meetings. “This is about a deteriorating relationship” and declining trust, a senior Arab official said in discussing the need for the summit, which was pulled together in recent days, the newspaper reported. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment.
UNITED STATES
No immunity for India envoy
Federal prosecutors say an Indian diplomat who was strip-searched when arrested on charges she fraudulently obtained a work visa for her housekeeper and lied about the housekeeper’s pay is not covered by diplomatic immunity. Prosecutors say in papers filed on Friday in Manhattan federal court that since Devyani Khobragade is no longer in the country, she is not immune from prosecution. The papers also say the immunity she would have enjoyed at the consular level would not protect against the charges in this case. Khobragade was the deputy consul-general in New York City. The Department of State ordered to her to leave the country last month following her indictment.
ECUADOR
Paper fined over cartoon
The media oversight agency fined the newspaper El Universo for a cartoon it published about prosecutors’ Dec. 27 search of the home of a journalist who has since left the country, authorities said on Friday. The agency also said Xavier Bonilla has 72 hours to “correct” his cartoon, which portrays soldiers slamming a door down onto Fernando Villavicencio and hauling computers and boxes of files from his home. Villavicencio investigates oil industry corruption and President Rafael Correa’s administration said he illegally obtained e-mails from Correa’s account. The agency said the cartoon “did not correspond to reality.” It fined El Universo 2 percent of its revenues from the past three months.
UNITED STATES
Warships off to Black Sea
Officials say the first of two warships heading into the Black Sea in advance of the Olympic Games has sailed from Italy. The USS Mount Whitney got under way on Friday from Gaeta and the frigate USS Taylor was expected to leave from Naples yesterday. The officials spoke about the warships on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to publicly disclose ship movements. The FBI also said at least two dozen agents are going to Sochi, Russia. FBI Director James Comey said Russian authorities face a serious threat and he wants the FBI to be ready to help.
‘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