AFGHANISTAN
Taliban urges US explusion
The Taliban on Saturday called on the public to expel the US from the country, just as they said mujahidin fighters had done to Soviet forces 25 years ago to the day. In a statement issued on the 25th anniversary of the final Soviet withdrawal from the country, now a national holiday, the Taliban sought to connect the steady departure of US and NATO troops ahead of a year-end deadline to the end of the decade-long Soviet occupation. “Today, America is facing the same fate as the former Soviets and trying to escape from our country,” the Taliban said in a statement e-mailed to reporters by Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi. “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is calling on its people to deal with today’s invaders the same they did with the yesterday’s invaders,” he said, using the name the Taliban government used during its repressive 1996 to 2001 rule. In line with the so-called Geneva accords, a last convoy of Soviet soldiers crossed a bridge connecting the country with the then-Soviet Union on Feb. 15, 1989.
ITALY
Party vows responsibility
Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has pledged that his Forza Italia party will be a “responsible opposition” to any new government headed by the Democratic Party leader and Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi. Berlusconi was among the political leaders who met on Saturday with the nation’s president, who is feeling out political leaders to determine if Renzi has enough support to form a new government after he sidelined outgoing Prime Minister Enrico Letta, a rival Democrat. Berlusconi, who remains influential despite his ban on holding political office, said he was concerned by the “opaque” power grab. Renzi, 39, was waiting in Florence to be summoned by the president, if he finds there is enough support to form a government. That was not expected before yesterday. A Renzi government would need to pass confidence votes in parliament.
MEXICO
Reporter threatened: family
The daughters of a reporter slain in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz are saying their father had been threatened because of his work. Officials in Veracruz have said that Gregorio Jimenez was killed in a personal vendetta, but on Friday, Jimenez’s daughters told authorities their father had had a heated argument with a woman who was mad about a story he wrote of a man getting stabbed outside her bar. They said Teresa de Jesus Hernandez told their father she knew members of a drug cartel and would have him killed. Jimenez was a police beat reporter for the newspapers Notisur and El Liberal. He is at least the 12th journalist slain or gone missing in Veracruz since 2010.
GERMANY
Minister resigns over leak
Minister of Agriculture Hans-Peter Friedrich resigned on Friday amid accusations he leaked confidential information about a fellow lawmaker suspected of possessing child pornography, dealing a blow to Chancellor Angela Merkel and her two-month old government. “I offered my resignation as agriculture minister to the chancellor today,” Friedrich told a press conference. The conservative member of the Bavarian Christian Social Union said the pressure had grown too much for him to stay in office. He said he remained convinced that he had acted appropriately. “To you, ladies and gentlemen, I say: ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ — I’ll be back,” he said.
INDIA
New Mazurier charge sought
Prosecutors asked a judge on Saturday to allow them to bring an additional charge of sodomy against a French consular official who has been accused of raping his three-year-old daughter. Special public prosecutor B.T. Venkatesh said that the judge Shubha Gowdar had admitted his application to bring the additional charge against Pascal Mazurier during a brief hearing in Bangalore as there was prima facie evidence of him committing sodomy. The judge had then told Mazurier’s defense team to file any objections to the prosecution’s application at the next hearing of the court, which was set for Monday next week. Mazurier had on Monday last week pleaded not guilty to allegations that he raped his daughter in a case that dates back to June 2012. The 40-year-old was arrested on a complaint filed by his wife and spent four months in jail before being released on bail.
INDONESIA
Kerry visits Istiqlal mosque
US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Southeast Asia’s largest mosque during his visit to Jakarta yesterday, paying tribute to Islam in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. After removing his shoes outside the Istiqlal mosque in the heart of Jakarta, Kerry walked through the vast building accompanied by Grand Imam Kyai al-Hajj Ali Mustafa Yaqub. Calling it an “extraordinary place,” the top US diplomat told reporters: “I am very privileged to be here and I am grateful to the grand imam for allowing me to come.” The administration of US President Barack Obama has worked hard to try to repair relations with the Muslim world, which were badly frayed under the previous administration with the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
JAPAN
Snowstorm traps 800 cars
At least 800 cars are stuck on a hillside trunk road and other nearby roads after it was hit by a snowstorm which is now heading north, officials said yesterday. The snowstorm killed 12 people, grounded more than 100 flights and disrupted road and rail transport on Friday and Saturday. It is now moving northward and expected to strengthen today, the meteorological agency said yesterday, warning of heavy snow, storms and snowslides, as well as high waves in the east and northeast of the country. National Route 18 that runs through Gunma and Nagano prefectures north of Tokyo is partly closed as hundreds of cars are stuck due to heavy snow, a local official said. The congestion extends for several kilometers, the official in the ski resort of Karuizawa in Nagano Prefecture said. The temperature fell as low as minus-3.6oC yesterday morning in Karuizawa, with accumulated snow about 90cm deep, the weather agency said.
INDIA
Amnesty India funds frozen
The government has frozen funding of nearly US$500,000 to the rights group Amnesty International’s local offshoot over concerns about the source of some of the cash, a newspaper reported on Saturday. The Ministry of Home Affairs decided to prevent Amnesty India from taking receipt of the money from its parent organization in Britain after about one-third of the overall amount was traced to an offshore trust. The trust, based on the island of Gibraltar, was set up by a gambling tycoon who has been convicted of fraud in the US, the report said. Amnesty has been a vocal critic of the New Delhi government, most recently accusing the security agencies of committing human rights violations during anti-insurgency operations in the center of the country.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion