PERU
Attorney general fired
The attorney general was dismissed on Wednesday on suspicion of engaging in corruption while employed in an earlier post — an unprecedented firing of the country’s top law enforcement official. The decision against Carlos Ramos Heredia, who had been suspended from his job since December last year while the probe against him proceeded, was announced by a judicial oversight board. The vote in the six-member body was 5-1. Ramos can appeal the decision. The judicial board said it found links between him and a corruption ring led by Cesar Alvarez, the now-jailed former governor of Ancash. Alvarez was convicted of extortion and accepting bribes in exchange for granting public works contracts in his region. Ramos is said to have provided cover for Alvarez while serving as head of an auditing department in the attorney general’s office. Investigators have said Ramos arranged the firing of prosecutors who were investigating Alvarez and his associates. “It does not look good for Peru to fire its attorney general, but the reaction of correcting this is good,” lawmaker Victor Andres Garcia Belaunde said.
AUSTRALIA
Depp’s dogs ordered out
Quarantine authorities have ordered Johnny Depp to fly his dogs Pistol and Boo out of the country by tomorrow or they will be put down. Minister of Agriculture Barnaby Joyce yesterday accused Depp of smuggling the Yorkshire terriers aboard his private jet when he returned to the country on April 21 to resume filming of the fifth installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series at Gold Coast studios. The Department of Agriculture on Wednesday gave Depp, 51, and his 29-year-old wife, Amber Heard, a 72-hour notice to send their pets back to the US. “If you start letting movie stars — even though they have been the sexiest man alive twice — to come into our nation [with pets], then why don’t we just break laws for everybody?” Joyce said. “It’s time that Pistol and Boo buggered off back to the United States.” The department discovered the pets after reports a handler had taken them in a handbag to a dog groomer on Saturday last week, Joyce said.
MEXICO
US child pornographer jailed
An American who took pornographic photographs of a girl with her mother’s consent was sentenced to 199 years in prison, authorities said on Wednesday. The man had been arrested in Manzanillo, Colima State, for “taking images of a minor girl, which he then sent to other countries on the Internet,” the prosecutor’s office said. It did not name the man or provide the girl’s age. In addition to his prison term, he was fined the equivalent of US$96,000. The mother was convicted for allowing images to be taken of a minor, as the girl was under 18. The special prosecutor’s office for crimes against women and people trafficking in the past five years has documented more than 4,000 pages of child pornography made in the country.
LITHUANIA
NATO troops requested
The Baltic states will formally ask NATO to deploy several thousand troops as a deterrent, the government said yesterday, amid tensions with Russia over the conflict in eastern Ukraine. “We are seeking a brigade-size unit so that every Baltic nation would have a battalion,” military spokesman Captain Mindaugas Neimontas said. He said the nations’ top generals would soon send a joint request for permanent forces to NATO’s top commander, US General Philip Breedlove. Latvia’s defense ministry confirmed the move in a statement, saying “the joint letter will be sent next week.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of