EL SALVADOR
Fifty-one killed in one day
The small Central American nation has recorded another milestone in criminal violence: At least 51 people were killed in a single day this week, the National Civil Police force said on Friday. Thursday’s toll surpassed the mark of 45 killed on Saturday last week as gang violence continues to plague the country of 6 million people. Authorities have said the surge in violence is a result of a government crackdown that has led to gunfights between police and criminals, as well as gang battles over territory. Police on Friday also reported finding the body of a slain police officer — the 45th officer this year to die at the hands of gangs. Sixteen soldiers and six prison guards also have been killed. The government said 3,942 people were slain last year, an increase of 1,429 from 2013.
VENEZUELA
Maduro seeks China funds
President Nicolas Maduro is to go cap in hand to China and Vietnam this weekend, with his oil-rich country mired in recession. Maduro, under pressure to alleviate crippling shortages of even the most basic everyday goods, announced the trip on Friday at a rally outside the presidential palace in Caracas. The nation, hard-hit by plunging global oil revenues and reeling from soaring crime, needed heavyweight financial support in “difficult times,” he said. “Tomorrow I will go to Vietnam and China to make arrangements for the economic and financial security of Venezuela,” he told supporters, saying he had invitations from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近) and Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang. To raise badly needed cash, Maduro’s government in April secured a US$5 billion loan from Beijing, a major political and economic ally. China — which is ramping up its presence in South America — has been a key supporter of Venezuela since former president Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999.
FRANCE
Conmen target minister
Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian has taken legal action after conmen impersonated him in a series of phonecalls with African leaders in a bid to obtain money, his office said on Friday. According to the pan-African weekly magazine Jeune Afrique, several African presidents were contacted by someone posing as Le Drian who claimed that French secret agents had been abducted by jihadists, but insisting that the news be kept secret. The caller then demanded that they pay a ransom of millions of euros into a number bank account in place of France, whose official policy bars payment of such demands. In return, they would be reimbursed through French development aid, the caller claimed. However, nobody was fooled, with all of the officials making contact with Le Drian’s office. There was no information about which African leaders had been targeted.
HONG KONG
Thief substitutes diamond
A thief swapped a US$220,000 diamond with a fake at a luxury jewelry store in Hong Kong, police said yesterday, as the city wrestles with an uptick in shop theft. The diamond, valued at about HK$1.7 million (US$219,310), was taken by a man in his 30s on Friday from a store in Hong Kong’s Central financial district, police said. “From [closed-circuit TV] CCTV footage, it was found that a man posing as a customer arrived at the shop and picked out one of the items and then was suspected to have swapped the diamond with a fake,” a police statement said. The fake diamond was discovered by one of the store’s employees, who reported the case to the police. No arrests have been made.
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