AZERBAIJAN
Security minister fired
President Ilham Aliyev on Saturday fired his security minister in a surprise move that opposition politicians said highlights a lack of transparency in the former Soviet nation’s political system. “I decree to relieve Eldar Mahmudov of the position of the Azerbaijani Republic’s national security minister,” Aliyev said in a decree published on his Web site, giving no explanation for the decision. Widely seen as an Aliyev loyalist, Mahmudov, 59, served as national security minister since 2004. Prominent opposition politician Isa Gambar said the way Aliyev fired the veteran minister shows that “there is no transparency whatsoever in political decisionmaking. What happened to Mahmudov shows yet again how opaque Azerbaijan’s political system is,” Gambar said.
MONTENEGRO
Protesters tear gassed
Police on Saturday used tear gas to break up a protest by the opposition demanding the government’s resignation and an early election in the Balkan state. Several hundred opposition leaders and supporters gathered in downtown Podgorica, the capital, and tried to advance through a police cordon. Officers fired tear gas and pushed them away. Anti-government leaders had staged a days-long protest in a main street in Podgorica, but police removed their tents earlier in the day.
CUBA
Syria deployment denied
A senior official in Havana on Saturday “categorically” denied reports that troops were in Syria supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Talk of up to 300 soldiers sent to Syria originated in the US’ Fox News network on Wednesday, citing an unnamed US official as source. The Fox story also mentioned that the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies had learned that the head of the armed forces visited Syria with a military team to support the al-Assad regime. On Saturday, Gerardo Penalver Portal, the head of bilateral affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a brief statement that the nation “refutes and categorically denies the irresponsible and unfounded information on the alleged presence of Cuban troops in Syria, which some media have echoed.”
THAILAND
Man rescues birdwatchers
A construction worker on a fishing trip dramatically rescued two Norwegian bird watchers who were sinking into a mudflat in the south, lying down in the mud to allow the pair to use his body to pry themselves to safety. The incident on Friday morning in Krabi Province was caught on camera by an amateur photographer from Bangkok, who posted the video on Facebook. The posting got at least 1.6 million views, with many showering the rescuer with praise. The Norwegian pair, whose names were not released, had taken their cameras to a river estuary at first light, but the mudflats proved to be far less firm than they had thought. They quickly found themselves sinking. A construction worker, identified by media as Chat Ubonchinda, was heading home from a fishing trip by boat when he spotted them. First, he tried to pull the two out, but the mud was too thick. After taking their belongings to firmer ground, Chat lay down in the mud and let the two lift themselves up by pulling against his body. One of them even crawled across his back on the way to safety. “All Thais are proud of what you did, it’s great and no more words need to be explained,” Somchai Ouansakul wrote on Facebook.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing