ECUADOR
Stuffed tortoise sent home
The embalmed body of the giant tortoise known as Lonesome George — the last known survivor of a species that died out in 2012 — returned home to the Ecuadoran Galapagos Islands on Friday. The body arrived in Puerto Ayora, the capital of the archipelago’s Santa Cruz Island, on an Ecuadoran military plane after undergoing taxidermy work at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, the Galapagos National Park said. The giant tortoise — thought to be about 100 years old when he died in June 2012 — was the last known member of the subspecies Geochelone nigra abingdoni. He failed to reproduce, despite a decades-long conservation effort that earned him the moniker Lonesome George. His body is to go on display at the park starting on Thursday next week.
CUBA
Migrants returned to island
About 680 Cubans have been returned to the nation from various countries since then-US president Barack Obama ended a longstanding immigration policy that allowed any Cuban who made it to US soil to stay and become a legal resident, state television reported on Friday. The government had long sought the repeal of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which it said encouraged people to risk dangerous voyages and drained the nation of professionals. The Jan. 12 decision by Washington to end it followed months of negotiations focused in part on getting Havana to agree to take back people who had arrived in the US. Cuban state television late on Friday said that the returnees came from countries including the US, Mexico and the Bahamas, and were sent back to the island between Jan. 12 and Friday. Florida’s El Nuevo Herald reported that the two women were deemed “inadmissible” for entry to the US and placed on a morning flight to Havana. Wilfredo Allen, an attorney for one of the women, said they had arrived at Miami International Airport, Florida, with European passports.
ARGENTINA
Penguins flock for fish
More than 1 million penguins have traveled to Punta Tombo peninsula during this year’s breeding season, drawn by an unusual abundance of small fish. Local officials said that it is a record number in recent years for the world’s largest colony of Magellanic penguins, offering an especially stunning spectacle for the tens of thousands of people who visit the reserve annually. The peninsula’s tiny islets are well-suited to nesting and have sardines and anchovies close to the shoreline. The birds come on shore in September and October and stay while the males and females take turns caring for their eggs and hunting for food. The warm-weather birds breed in large colonies in southern Argentina and Chile and migrate north as far as southwestern Brazil between March and September.
CAMBODIA
Jolie film debuts
Angelina Jolie yesterday unveiled her new film on the Khmer Rouge era at the Angkor Wat complex. The king and survivors of the communist regime were among about 1,500 people invited to the debut screening of First They Killed My Father, directed by Jolie and based on the memoirs of Loung Ung, who was five years old when the Khmer Rouge swept into Phnom Penh, plunging her family into a harrowing ordeal in labor camps before she escaped to the US. “The movie reflects the brutality of the Khmer Rouge regime,” Cinema and Cultural Diffusion Department director Sin Chanchhaya said.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) purge of his most senior general is driven by his effort to both secure “total control” of his military and root out corruption, US Ambassador to China David Perdue said told Bloomberg Television yesterday. The probe into Zhang Youxia (張又俠), Xi’s second-in-command, announced over the weekend, is a “major development,” Perdue said, citing the family connections the vice chair of China’s apex military commission has with Xi. Chinese authorities said Zhang was being investigated for suspected serious discipline and law violations, without disclosing further details. “I take him at his word that there’s a corruption effort under
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
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