EL SALVADOR
Flores has brain damage
Former president Francisco Flores, who faces trial accused of embezzling millions of US dollars in aid money for earthquake victims, has irreversible brain damage after suffering a stroke, doctors said on Thursday. Flores, who was under house arrest, was rushed to a hospital on Sunday after having a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body and he has been in a coma ever since. “The patient has irreversible neurological damage,” a team of specialists at Rosales hospital in San Salvador told the court where Flores faces trial. He has undergone several operations, his lawyers say. Flores, 56, is accused of stealing US$15 million donated by Taiwan for victims of a 2001 earthquake. Salvadoren president from 1999 to 2004, he turned himself in last year to respond to the allegations, which he denies.
IRAN
Drone flies over US ships
State television is reporting that the country flew a surveillance drone over a US aircraft carrier during an ongoing naval exercise. The report yesterday said the drone took photographs of the carrier, without elaborating. The US Navy’s 5th Fleet, which oversees the Persian Gulf from Bahrain, declined to immediately comment yesterday. The nuclear-powered USS Harry S. Truman, based out of Norfolk, Virginia, is in the Gulf supporting operations against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
UNITED STATES
Circus elephant dies in care
Ringling Brothers, the US’ best-known circus, on Thursday announced the death of its youngest elephant at a conservation center where it is retiring the animals after criticism from rights groups. Mike, a two-year-old, died of a virus “despite the heroic efforts of our veterinary and animal care staff,” Ringling Brothers said in a statement. Animal rights group PETA said that the elephant’s death was “no surprise.” Ringling director of veterinary care Ashley Settles said the illness progressed aggressively with Mike beginning to show symptoms on Saturday and dying by Monday. “No one knows why the virus manifests this way in some elephants, since most elephants harbor the virus and never become ill,” she said. Mike was born in June 2013 at the Ringling conservation center in Florida and was the youngest elephant there. Ringling Brothers announced two weeks ago that it was relocating all its elephants by May to the center, which develops breeding programs and research aimed at the animals’ protection. “Stressful conditions have been linked to the highly fatal disease that killed this calf, which disproportionately impacts captive baby elephants,” Rachel Mathews of PETA said.
UNITED STATES
Guitarist Paul Kantner dies
Paul Kantner, an original member of the seminal 1960s rock band Jefferson Airplane and the eventual leader of successor group Jefferson Starship, has died at age 74. Kantner, who had survived close brushes with death as a younger man and recovered from a heart attack last year, died at a San Francisco hospital on Thursday after falling ill earlier in the week, former girlfriend and publicist Cynthia Bowman said. Few bands so embodied the idealism and hedonism of the late ’60s music scene in San Francisco as Jefferson Airplane. Kantner drew upon his passion for politics and science fiction to help write favorites such as Wooden Ships. The group was the first from the Bay Area to get a national record contract and achieve mainstream success, thanks to the classics Somebody to Love and White Rabbit.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in