BRAZIL
Global withdrawals mulled
The government is considering leaving 34 second-tier international organizations, including the UN Industrial Development Organization, to cut back on costs, according to a list seen by reporters. The nation has run up US$866 million in arrears with international bodies such as the UN due to a fiscal crisis, and its diplomats abroad have even had trouble paying their rent, a source with knowledge of the matter said. The list of possible withdrawals, prepared by the Ministry of Budget and Planning, includes the Ibero-American summit organization and six institutions in the South American trade bloc, Mercosur. The source said a decision had not yet been made.
GUATEMALA
Former president charged
Former president Otto Perez Molina and his vice president Roxana Baldetti on Thursday were formally charged in a sprawling corruption scheme that allegedly emptied government coffers and laundered money to be spent on Miami shopping sprees, real estate and luxury vehicles. Seventy people are accused in the arrangement involving illegal financing, embezzlement and money laundering, prosecutor Julio Barrios Prado said. “That money was used to buy goods and services for you and Baldetti, including real estate and luxury vehicles, as well as US$4.3 million in gifts,” Barrios said to Perez Molina at the hearing. Barrios said Perez Molina, who won the presidency in 2012, received millions of dollars in illegal financing through shell companies that made it appear legitimate.
UNITED NATIONS
General to attend meeting
US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joseph Dunford was to attend a UN peacekeeping meeting yesterday. The US Mission to the UN said in a statement that the meeting was to be a follow-up to US President Barack Obama’s Leaders’ Summit on Peacekeeping last year. The mission said the visit marks the first time the US’ top general has attended a meeting at the UN. Obama’s peacekeeping summit saw countries pledging more than 40,000 troops for peacekeeping missions.
UNITED STATES
Police ‘neutralize threat’
A Long Island, New York, man was arrested on weapons charges on Thursday after police officers found rifles, bomb-making instructions, more than US$40,000 in cash and Nazi paraphernalia in his house, authorities said. The man, Edward Perkowski, 29, of Mount Sinai, also faces drug charges after police recovered marijuana and mushrooms during the search. Perkowski’s brother, Sean, 25, who also lives in the home, was arrested on an unrelated outstanding bench warrant, police said. “Today’s search warrant might have prevented a deadly, violent incident, like the one we recently saw in Orlando,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Timothy Sini said at a news conference in Yaphank. Among the items the police found when they entered Perkowski’s house at about 6am on Thursday was a black binder filled with instructions on bomb making, some handwritten. Six semi-automatic rifles, a handgun, a shotgun, four rifles and a stun gun were also found, Sini said. In a photograph taken by the police at the house, a framed picture of Adolf Hitler rests next to a lineup of weapons. “We neutralized a clear public threat,” Sini said. John Leonard, who said he lives on the same street as Perkowski, said the police were frequently at the home.
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
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
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