MEXICO
Official clarifies pot remark
Secretary of Tourism Enrique de la Madrid suggested that legalizing marijuana could help reduce drug violence at big tourist resorts, but later said he was not speaking in an official capacity when he made the comment. De la Madrid on Thursday said that legalizing pot could help reduce violence in states like Baja California Sur, which is home to the twin resorts of Los Cabos and has the country’s second-highest murder rate, and Quintana Roo, home of the resort of Cancun. Cancun, while relatively quiet, has had outbursts of shootings, some related to a struggle by the Jalisco New Generation cartel to move into the city. However, late on Thursday, De la Madrid said on Twitter: “I want to emphatically say that my opinion on legalizing marijuana was a personal comment.” Security analyst Alejandro Hope on Friday wrote in a column in newspaper El Universal that “when the law enforcement agenda is being set by the tourism secretary, something is not working. Seriously.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Top BBC men take pay cut
The BBC on Friday reported that six of its highest-paid male broadcasters have agreed to take pay cuts after revelations of a gender divide in salaries. The BBC said in a statement that the public service broadcaster was “very grateful” to Huw Edwards, Nicky Campbell, John Humphrys, Jon Sopel, Nick Robinson and Jeremy Vine for agreeing to reduce their salaries. Details of the voluntary salary cuts were not announced. The BBC was embarrassed last year when a list of top earners showed that two-thirds of the best-paid workers were men. Many men were also found to be receiving much larger salaries than women in comparable jobs. Humphrys, 74, a popular host of the influential Radio 4 morning news program, said the wage cut was his idea. “I’ve been at the BBC for an awfully long time and I’ve been paid very well and I’m not exactly on the breadline,” he said.
HONDURAS
Inauguration protest planned
President Juan Orlando Hernandez was scheduled to be sworn in yesterday for a second term as the opposition vowed mass protests over claims he fraudulently won the election in November last year. The leftist Alliance in Opposition against the Dictatorship has called for street protests during the inauguration in Tegucigalpa. Thousands of extra police and troops have been called up to ensure security for the event. On the eve of the inauguration, it emerged that Hernandez’s newly appointed police chief, Jose David Aguilar Moran, would be investigated by a government commission after reports that he had helped a drug cartel ship a consignment of cocaine to the US.
UNITED STATES
Inmate caught on supply run
A Texas inmate who had escaped has been arrested trying to break back into prison with bottles of alcohol, tobacco and home-cooked food. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said 25-year-old Joshua Hansen of Dallas has been charged with escape and possession of marijuana. He was originally imprisoned on a narcotics conviction. Deputies on Wednesday spotted Hansen as he ran onto private land near the prison in Beaumont and grabbed a duffel bag containing three bottles of brandy, some whisky, tobacco and “a large amount of home-cooked food.” They arrested him as he ran back toward the prison. Nearby rancher Michael Latta told KFDM-TV that he has for years contended with low-level offenders who flee the facility only to later return.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing