PERU
Illegal mines destroyed
In one of the biggest such raids yet, police and soldiers destroyed scores of illegal gold mining camps in the Madre de Dios region this week. They also targeted about three dozen brothels, where officials said they rescued two minors presumably working as prostitutes. It was the latest in more than 60 operations that the government has conducted since 2014, when it made illegal for wildcatters to continue mining that has been ravaging pristine jungle and contaminating it with tonnes of mercury. More than 1,000 police and soldiers dynamited and dismantled mining machinery valued at US$3 million, including dredges and motors used to separate gold flecks from sand in crude sluices, the government said. The targeted area in southeastern jungles bordering Brazil and Bolivia, a region known as La Pampa, is adjacent to the Tambopata reserve, one of the world’s most biologically diverse ecospheres.
HAITI
Fritz Jean named PM
The provisional president has appointed reputable economist Fritz Jean as the new prime minister, a senior official said, in a step forward for the impoverished Caribbean nation that is trying to quickly hold a delayed presidential election. Anthony Barbier, a top official at President Jocelerme Privert’s palace, said the president had signed an executive order appointing Jean, a former central bank governor. “I can confirm that President Privert has signed the executive order appointing Fritz Alphonse Jean as prime minister,” Barbier said. Jean’s job is to include helping create a balanced election council supported by Haiti’s fractious rival political parties, a key step needed to hold the election set for April.
TURKEY
Jailed journalists freed
Two journalists imprisoned for their reports on alleged government arms smuggling to Syria have been released from jail hours after the country’s highest court ruled that their rights were violated. Cumhuriyet editor-in-chief Can Dundar and the paper’s Ankara representative, Erdem Gul, were released from a prison in the outskirts of Istanbul early yesterday. They were greeted by a large group of supporters. They were jailed in November last year, months after Cumhuriyet published what it said were images of Turkish trucks carrying ammunition to Syrian militants. The paper said the images proved that Turkey was smuggling arms to rebels — a charge the government rejects. Dundar called the court’s ruling a historic decision. Prosecutors were seeking life prison terms for the two on terror and spying charges.
UNITED STATES
Stolen statue going home
The government is working to return to Italy a Roman statue stolen in 1983. Prosecutors on Thursday said they are taking steps in federal court in New York City to return a marble statue of the limbless body of a woman draped in cloth. The statue, known as Torlonia Peplophoros, was stolen from the Villa Torlonia in Rome. After it was brought into the country illegally in the late 1990s, the statue was purchased in 2001 from a gallery by a New York City resident for about US$75,000. Prosecutors say the buyer agreed to give it up several weeks ago after learning it was stolen. The Villa Torlonia displays works of art and cultural property. It was used by Fascist Italian leader Benito Mussolini as his residence from 1925 to 1943.
‘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