VENEZUELA
UNASUR nixes US sanctions
South American governments have rejected an effort by US lawmakers to apply sanctions on Caracas over human rights concerns. Foreign ministers from the 12-member Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) issued a statement on Friday saying that the proposed legislation would constitute a violation of the nation’s internal affairs and undermine attempts by regional diplomats and the Vatican to foster dialogue between the government and the opposition. Sanctions represent “an obstacle for the Venezuelan people can overcome their difficulties with independence, and in democratic peace,” according to a statement after a union meeting in the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador. The US House of Representatives on Wednesday is expected to debate a bipartisan bill that would order US President Barack Obama’s administration to ban visas and freeze the assets of Venezuelan officials who have committed abuses over the past three months of unrest. Similar legislation has already cleared the US Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations.
UNITED STATES
Amanda grows to hurricane
Storm Amanda has gained strength and is now a Category Three hurricane, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center reported on Saturday. At 3am that day, the eye of Amanda was far from land, about 1,07km southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, and heading further out to sea in a west-northwest direction, the center said. Amanda was packing sustained winds of 185kph making it a Category Three storm on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale. The storm is moving at near 5kph and was forecast to turn north-northwest yesterday.
UNITED STATES
Actor jailed over child porn
A Spanish-language actor from a popular show by broadcaster Univision has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for child pornography. Adonis Losada faced a possible 50-year sentence after being convicted in February of 66 child pornography charges until Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Karen Miller threw out all but four charges on Friday. Assistant State Attorney Gregory Schiller told the Palm Beach Post he may appeal Miller’s decision. Losada still faces child pornography charges in Miami-Dade County and has been jailed since 2009. He has represented himself since firing his attorney before trial.
UNITED STATES
Woman jailed for killing son
A Samoan woman who acknowledged killing her newborn son at a Washington convent where she was studying to become a nun has been sentenced to four years in prison. Sosefina Amoa was sentenced on Friday in DC Superior Court after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Her lawyer said she was shocked and panicked when she put a wool garment over the baby’s nose and mouth, smothering the boy in February. Amoa had arrived in the US from Samoa less than a week before delivering the baby at the Little Sisters of the Poor convent.
UNITED STATES
State readies electric chair
Tennessee’s top prisons official says the state is “ready as needed” to use the electric chair if it cannot get drugs for lethal injections. A corrections spokeswoman on Friday said the state does not have a supply of the drugs, which have become scarcer following a European-led boycott. Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed a bill into law on Thursday allowing the state to electrocute inmates if it cannot obtain the chemicals. It is the first such law in the country.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in