NICARAGUA
Ortega to seek third term
President Daniel Ortega is to seek a third consecutive presidential term after his leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front party on Saturday nominated him as their candidate for elections in November. A polarizing figure who has been in office since 2006 — not counting his stint as president from 1985 to 1990 — Ortega was unanimously nominated by the party’s nearly 2,000 mostly young delegates. The event was closed to the media. In a speech prior to his nomination, Ortega said he would not allow international monitors to observe the election. “Shameless observers. Observation is ended here. Let them go observe in their own countries,” the 70-year-old Ortega said. Ortega faces a split and unpopular opposition. Recent polls showed that he has 57 percent voter support, far ahead of his main rival, Independent Liberal Party Legislator Luis Callejas. In 2014, amid controversy, Ortega had a law passed that scrapped a previous limit of two consecutive five-year terms for presidents.
BRAZIL
Rio subway depends on loan
Officials said the conclusion of a new subway line crucial for the transportation of visitors to the Rio Olympics depends on the federal government’s approval of a US$390 million loan. Rio de Janeiro Department of Transportation said in a statement on Saturday that the National Development Bank has agreed to extend the loan, but the Ministry of Finance must still approve it. The line is scheduled to be inaugurated on Aug. 1, four days before the Games open on Aug. 5. State Secretary of Transportation Rodrigo Vieira on Friday said work on the line cannot be delayed even by a day.
HONDURAS
Gay rights leader buried
A leader in the gay community has been buried several days after he was kidnapped and killed in the city of San Pedro Sula. Rene Martinez, 39, was a city employee working in anti-violence outreach programs and a rising member of the National Party. The attorney general’s office said in a statement that his body showed signs of having been strangled. No motive for his murder was given. Martinez’s family said in a statement that assailants kidnapped him on Wednesday after he arrived home, forcing him into a vehicle. Family members alerted police, but his body was found two days later in another neighborhood. He was buried on Saturday. In a statement on Friday, the US embassy condemned his murder and called for a thorough investigation. Joani Garcia, director of the National Forum on AIDS, called Martinez “one of the main defenders of lesbians, gays, transsexuals and intransexuals in the country.”
MARSHALL ISLANDS
Cocaine washed ashore
Several packages of cocaine have washed ashore on a atoll in the western Pacific, police said yesterday, the latest shipment of drugs to pitch up on the remote archipelago’s coast. Police said they recovered about 18kg of the drug from a local resident who found the packages on Enewetak Atoll and was arrested for not immediately handing them over to authorities. Cocaine sold in the nation’s capital, Majuro, was believed to be from the same shipment, police said. “A total of 18 packages of what is believed to be drugs were confiscated by Marshall Islands police department and Enewetak local police,” Police Commissioner George Lanwi said.
INDIA
Bus crash claims 17 lives
A speeding bus yesterday struck two cars on a highway in a crash that killed at least 17 people and injured 35 others in the west of the country, police said. Constable Sanjay Shetge said the bus struck the cars as they were parked on the side of the Navi Mumbai highway to fix a flat tire. All three vehicles fell into a ditch with the impact of the crash. Villagers and police climbed into the ditch and helped rescue the injured and ferry them to nearby hospitals. Navi Mumbai is about 30km east of Mumbai. Police figures show the nation has the world’s highest road death toll, with more than 110,000 people dying each year in accidents commonly caused by speeding and poor vehicle and road maintenance.
THAILAND
Building collapse kills one
A woman, who was one of six Thai tourists at an eastern beach resort, was killed on Saturday when the building in which they were staying collapsed, police said. The other five people in the woman’s party were rescued several hours after the collapse of the two-story building at the Siam Beach Resort on Koh Chang, police Lieutenant Colonel Arwat Piboonsawat said. A three-year-old boy was one of those recovered from the rubble after a rescue effort of several hours to remove the debris. The survivors were hospitalized in good condition. The cause of the collapse was under investigation, but it occurred after a heavy rainstorm. Local media reported that officials speculated the rain might have undermined the building’s foundation. The kingdom’s huge tourist industry hosts almost 30 million visitors a year, but there have been increasing concerns about safety, though usually involving accidents at sea or on the roads. In the latest such incident, a speedboat carrying about 30 passengers crashed into another boat late on Saturday night as it was taking people back to the mainland from a concert held on Koh Samet. Media reports said the passengers were taken to hospitals, but no serious injuries were reported.
PHILIPPINES
Citizens told to kill dealers
President-elect Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday encouraged the public to help him in his war against crime and urged citizens with guns to shoot and kill drug dealers who resist arrest and fight back in their neighborhoods. Duterte told a huge crowd celebrating his presidential victory in the southern city of Davao that Filipinos who would help him in the bloody war against criminality would be rewarded. “Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun, you have my support,” Duterte said in his nationally televised speech, where he warned about an extensive illegal drugs trade in the country that involved even police. If a drug dealer would resist arrest or refuse to be brought to a police station and will instead threaten a citizen with a gun or knife, “you can kill him,” Duterte said. “Shoot him and I’ll give you a medal.” Duterte also asked three police generals based in the national police camp in metropolitan Manila to resign for involvement in crimes that he did not specify. He threatened to humiliate them in public if they did not quit and said he would order a review of dismissed criminal cases of active policemen to rid their ranks of misfits. Duterte has been suspected of playing a role in many killings of suspected criminals by motorcycle-riding assassins dubbed the “Davao death squads,” but human rights watchdogs say he has not been criminally charged because nobody has dared to testify against him in court.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was