MEXICO
Diabetes ‘vaccine’ removed
Regulatory authorities closed a health center that was touting an alleged diabetes “vaccine” and warned consumers that there is no vaccine for the condition. The drug regulatory agency on Thursday said that it closed the offices of a group known as the Live Your Diabetes Foundation in Mexico City. The group allegedly claimed it had come up with a drug it called “Self Blood Therapy Vaccine” that would ward off diabetes. The agency said it would seize all of the supposed medication.
PANAMA
Cracks in canal cause delay
The expansion of the Panama canal could face a new delay due to cracks that emerged a few months ago in one of the locks, a spokesman for the waterway’s authority said on Thursday. The consortium leading the construction project — led by Italian industrial group Salini Impregilo and Spanish construction company Sacyr — expects to finish repairing the cracks by mid-January, but it has not given a new date for completing the work, the authority said. The consortium is trying “to minimize the impact on the final hand over, planned for April next year,” the authority said in a statement. The Panama Canal expansion plan was originally set at US$5.25 billion.
PERU
Human burial site uncovered
Archeologists have found four tombs that are more than 1,000 years old in a pyramid-shaped cemetery that now sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood in Lima, experts said on Thursday. “There are four human burial sites, for adult individuals, three women and one man, who lived between the years 1000 to 1450,” said archeologist Isabel Flores, director of the program in Huaca Pucllana, a ceremonial complex in Miraflores district. The find confirms the historical presence in Lima of the Ichma culture. It took hold on the central coast around 1000 and disappeared around 1450 as Inca civilization began to spread. “These are the first four tombs of the Ichma culture. We think that we may still find more despite long-term looting,” said Flores, who has been researching the site for more than three decades. The tombs featured seated remains, looking toward the sea, wrapped up in textile and hand-woven natural materials alongside offerings such as ceramics and weaving tools. “So this is the first district in the country that has more than 1,500 years of known history to date,” added Flores, who also runs the Huaca Pucllana Museum. In Lima alone, there are about 350 huacas, the indigenous Quechua-language word for these ceremonial complexes, most of which predate Spanish colonization.
ARGENTINA
Meteorite pieces seized
Police seized 2.5 tonnes of bagged meteorite pieces from a house, authorities said on Thursday, suspecting the potentially hugely lucrative consignment was bound for Europe. The meteorite pieces, which are protected by law, were arranged in bags throughout the house in the northern province of Santiago del Estero. In Europe, about 20kg of meteorite sells for up to US$5,000 to collectors, researchers said. The owners of the house are a couple who sell furniture, but it was not immediately clear if they had been arrested. The site of the discovery is close to an area known as Campo del Cielo, in the neighboring province of Chaco, where about 4,000 years ago there was a meteor shower. Thefts there by scavengers are common.
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