UNITED STATES
Canadian PM arrives on visit
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday arrived in Washington for the first state visit by a Canadian leader in 19 years, a diplomatic honor made possible in part by new pledges of cooperation on combating climate change. US President Barack Obama and Trudeau are expected to announce new commitments to reduce planet-warming emissions of methane, a chemical contained in natural gas that is about 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide and can leak from drilling wells and pipelines.
RUSSIA
Bus of journalists attacked
A group of men attacked a small bus carrying foreign and local journalists and activists from a non-governmental organization on Wednesday near the border of Chechnya, beating the occupants and setting the vehicle on fire. The attack took place when assailants in three cars blocked the vehicle, Igor Kalyapin, Committee For Prevention of Torture chairman and Russian Presidential Human Rights Council member said on the council’s Web site. The committee’s regional leader Timur Rakhmatulin told reporters that two of the journalists and the bus driver were hospitalized, but their conditions were not immediately known. Several hours later, committee lawyer Dmitry Utukin said on Twitter that a group of camouflaged armed men attempted to break into the group’s office in the town of Karabulak.
The foreign journalists on the trip included a reporter for Swedish state radio and one from Norway’s Ny Tid newspaper, Rakhmatulin said
FRANCE
Students protest labor plan
Hundreds of thousands of students and workers took to the streets in protest at labor reforms on Wednesday, heaping pressure on President Francois Hollande’s already unpopular and fractured Socialist government. The plan, aimed at boosting hiring, would remove some of the obstacles to laying off workers. Teenagers and students threw eggs and firecrackers as they marched in Paris, directing their anger at French Minister of Labor Myriam El Khomri, whose name is on the draft law.
PERU
Court rejects candidacies
The nation’s highest electoral court on Wednesday rejected the candidacies of the second-place contender and another candidate for next month’s presidential elections a month from the vote. The elections board said the court had barred the candidacies of both centrist Julio Guzman, previously seen as likely to face frontrunner Keiko Fujimori in a runoff, and millionaire former governor Cesar Acuna. The court ruled that Guzman’s party, All for Peru, “seriously and irreparably violated its own rules” in nominating its candidates for the elections, and that Acuna “engaged in prohibited conduct by giving out money” at a rally.
ARGENTINA
Protesters overrun TV station
People exasperated over soaring electricity bills barged into a TV station and attacked a minister who was being interviewed about the increases. Video footage showed Misiones Province Minister of Finance Adolfo Safran answering a question when a group of about 150 protesters barged in shouting “End the robbery.” One protester hit the minister from behind before the TV crew managed to usher him to safety. “Let’s take a commercial break,” presenter Gustavo Anibarro said, as the scene descended into chaos on Tuesday night at Channel 12 in the city of Posadas.
KIRIBATI
New president elected
Taiwan’s diplomatic ally Kiribati has elected a new president, ending the 12-year rule of veteran climate campaigner Anote Tong, his office said yesterday. The low-lying island nation’s new leader is Taneti Maamau, who won a national vote held on Wednesday, the presidential office said. Unconfirmed figures gave Maamau, from the opposition Tobwaan Kiribati Party, 60 percent of the vote in the three-candidate field, with nearest rival Rimeta Beniamina on 38.5 percent and newcomer Tianeti Ioane trailing on 1.5 percent. Maamau’s predecessor Tong had to step down after completing the maximum of three presidential terms.
SOMALIA
Militants killed in joint strike
Hoping to capture a high-profile target, Somalian forces hopped off helicopters close to an al-Shabaab-controlled town, slipped through the dark and got into a fierce firefight that reportedly killed more than 10 Islamic extremists, US and Somalian officials said. US forces were serving in an advisory role and provided the helicopter transportation for the mission, Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said. The US forces accompanied the Somalian troops on the mission, but did not “go all the way to the objective,” he said.
AFGHANISTAN
Sentence cut slammed
Human Rights Watch has slammed Afghanistan’s justice system over the case of a woman beaten to death by a frenzied mob last year. Human Rights Watch says the system failed Farkhunda Malikzada when it cut the sentences of the men convicted of her murder. The New York-based group also says it is a “bitter irony” that Afghanistan’s Supreme Court confirmed the reduced sentences on International Women’s Day. Four men had been sentenced to death for their role in the killing of Malikzada, falsely accused of burning a Koran at a Kabul shrine. The Supreme Court upheld sentence reductions to 20 years for three of the men and 10 years for the fourth. Nine other sentences handed down in the case were also reduced.
INDIA
Festival organizer fined
India’s environmental watchdog has fined a group headed by a Hindu spiritual leader 50 million rupees (US$740,000) for building features that altered the topography and flow of the Yamuna River before a cultural festival this weekend. The National Green Tribunal issued the verdict late on Wednesday in response to petitions filed by environmentalists who say the roads, ramps and pontoon bridges could cause irreversible damage to the Yamuna floodplains. The tribunal, however, allowed Art of Living Foundation leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to hold the festival on payment of fine.
INDONESIA
Australia returns migrants
Six Bangladeshi migrants caught entering Australian waters by the country’s border patrol have been sent back to Indonesia on a fishing boat, an Indonesian official said yesterday. The move drew criticism from Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which reiterated its opposition to Australia’s controversial policy and warned such acts could be dangerous at sea. The six men and two Indonesian crew departed the eastern Indonesian city of Kupang last week bound for Australia. Local water police chief Teddy John Sahala Marbun said they reached Australian waters after three days at sea, but ran into engine trouble, and were rescued by Australia’s border patrol as their boat began to sink.
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