RUSSIA
Putin delays Kazakh visit
President Vladimir Putin has postponed a visit to Kazakhstan, officials from both countries said on Wednesday, although the Kremlin dismissed another report that plans had changed because Putin was unwell. Dauren Abayev, adviser and spokesman for Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, announced the delay of the meeting, originally scheduled for this week, without giving a reason or a new date. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko had been expected to join Putin and Nazarbayev for talks in Astana to discuss economic cooperation, the conflict in Ukraine and other issues. He is now expected to visit at a later date.
UNITED STATES
Salvadorean loses appeal
The Board of Immigration Appeals on Wednesday upheld a deportation order against former Salvadorean defense minister Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, who is accused of grave human rights violations, including torture and extrajudicial killings, during his nation’s civil war. As head of El Salvador’s Civil Guard and later defense minister, Vides Casanova “participated” in acts of torture and extrajudicial executions, by preventing either by omission or commission, defendants from being taken to trial, the board said. His deportation had been ordered in 2012, but he lodged an appeal against it. Vides Casanova arrived in the US in 1989 on an immigrant visa.
MEXICO
Whale fatally injures tourist
A 35-year-old Canadian woman died from injuries obtained when a surfacing gray whale crashed onto a tourist boat, the Baja California Sur state prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday. Firefighter commander Juan Carvajal Figueroa said the woman was in a boat with other tourists returning to the port of Cabo San Lucas about noon on Wednesday when the whale jumped from the water and landed on the boat, tossing the woman into the water. Navy personnel responded to the scene and moved the woman to shore. She died after being taken to a nearby clinic.
UNITED STATES
Alzheimer’s work touted
An experimental, non-invasive technique using targeted ultrasound has shown promise in lab animals toward eliminating the brain plaques that cause Alzheimer’s disease, researchers said on Wednesday. Tests on mice showed the approach eliminated almost all amyloid plaque in 75 percent of the animals studied, without damaging brain tissue, according to the study in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The therapy was delivered to the mice over several weeks. At the end, most of the treated animals were performing better in mazes, memory tests and other basic tasks than untreated mice. Researchers at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, plan to test the method in sheep next.
FRANCE
Robbers ambush jewel vans
About 15 armed suspects ambushed two vans carrying jewels worth millions on a highway in Burgundy in the dead of night, ejecting their drivers and speeding off. The vans were slowing down to approach a tollbooth on the A6 highway connecting Paris and Lyon at about midnight on Tuesday when four cars surrounded them and forced them to stop. No one was injured, and the van drivers were left at the scene. The vans were found burned 50km away. A search for the suspects is under way.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the