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.
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
Ten cheetah cubs held in captivity since birth and destined for international wildlife trade markets have been rescued in Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. They were all in stable condition despite all of them having been undernourished and limping due to being tied in captivity for months, said Laurie Marker, founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which is caring for the cubs. One eight-month-old cub was unable to walk after been tied up for six months, while a five-month-old was “very malnourished [a bag of bones], with sores all over her body and full of botfly maggots which are under the
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
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