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.
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
TICKING CLOCK: A path to a budget agreement was still possible, the president’s office said, as a debate on reversing an increase of the pension age carries on French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday was racing to find a new prime minister within a two-day deadline after the resignation of outgoing French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu tipped the country deeper into political crisis. The presidency late on Wednesday said that Macron would name a new prime minister within 48 hours, indicating that the appointment would come by this evening at the latest. Lecornu told French television in an interview that he expected a new prime minister to be named — rather than early legislative elections or Macron’s resignation — to resolve the crisis. The developments were the latest twists in three tumultuous
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