MEXICO
Cocaine found in suitcases
Federal police have seized more than 600kg of cocaine in eight suitcases at the capital’s international airport. The National Security Commission said in a statement on Friday that three people were arrested when they claimed the suitcases from the flight that originated in Caracas, Venezuela. The suitcases contained 545 packages of cocaine wrapped in tape. Authorities did not say when the seizure occurred.
MEXICO
Teachers march on reform
Thousands of teachers from a radical union on Friday marched in Mexico City to protest an education reform and the arrest of two of their leaders. The demonstration along Mexico City’s main boulevard capped days of protests in impoverished southern regions where teachers blocked roads. The National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) union opposes a reform by President Enrique Pena Nietom enacted in 2013, requiring teachers to undergo performance evaluations in an effort to improve the country’s poorly rated education system. The education department has vowed to fire teachers who refuse to take the tests. The reform aims to remove the power that unions have had over jobs and end the practice in which teaching positions were inherited or sold. Protesters were also angry about last weekend’s arrest of the leader of the CNTE’s Section 22 based in Oaxaca state, Ruben Nunez, over allegations that he received illicit funds and laundered US$1.3 million.
PERU
Fujimori taken to hospital
Former president Alberto Fujimori, serving a 25-year prison term for corruption and crimes against humanity, was transferred to a hospital on Friday after experiencing high blood pressure and pain in his tongue. The 77-year-old has been in and out of the hospital in recent months for a series of health problems. Fujimori had “high blood pressure and severe pain in his tongue, so the prison doctor recommended that he be transferred to the hospital,” prison service chief Julio Magan said. He has previously had gastric problems, cataract surgery and five operations for a cancerous growth on his tongue. The hospitalization came 12 days after his daughter Keiko narrowly lost Peru’s presidential election to center-right candidate Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Fujimori, who was president from 1990 to 2000, was first jailed in 2007 and convicted in 2009 for his role in killings by a death squad targeting supposed members of the Shining Path guerrilla group in the 1990s. Fujimori’s children have asked President Ollanta Humala to grant him a reprieve on health grounds, but the president rejected the request in 2013, saying medical reports indicated Fujimori’s condition was not sufficiently serious.
UNITED STATES
Wap apologizes for video
Rapper Fetty Wap has apologized for a music video that led to the suspension of a high school principal in his New Jersey hometown. The rapper recorded at Paterson Eastside High a video that contained references to drugs and featured a scantily clad pole dancer. He released the video for Wake Up last month. The school’s principal was put on paid administrative leave two weeks ago. Fetty Wap attended a board of education meeting on Wednesday and joined more than 100 residents in protesting the principal’s suspension. The school district is investigating who authorized the filming of the video at the school.
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