GUATEMALA
Soldier gets 5,160-year term
A court on Wednesday sentenced a former soldier to 5,160 years in prison for the massacre of 171 people in what is considered one of the worst atrocities in the country’s 36-year civil war. Prosecutors said Santos Lopez participated in the 1982 mass killings of nearly all of the men, women and children in the farming village of Dos Erres. Lopez was accused of being part of an elite unit that was sent to Dos Erres to find members of a guerrilla group that had ambushed a military convoy. When the patrol failed to find the guerrillas or guns, they pulled villagers from their homes and raped many of the young girls, prosecutors said, adding that to cover up the rapes, they killed nearly everyone living there.
PANAMA
Martinelli’s sons arrested
Two sons of former president Ricardo Martinelli, who is accused of collecting bribes worth millions in the wide-ranging Odebrecht scandal, have been arrested in the US, officials said on Wednesday. “US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested unlawfully present Panamanian nationals Luis Martinelli-Linares and Ricardo Martinelli-Linares during a targeted enforcement operation ... on Nov. 20,” a statement issued to the media said. “Both men lawfully entered the US; however, their visas were revoked in 2017 and they have been unlawfully present in the US since that time.” Brazilian construction company Odebrecht has agreed to pay the government fines totaling US$220 million and cooperate with authorities. Andre Campos Rabello, Odebrecht’s former chief in Panama, had told a court that both sons took bribes amounting to US$6 million from 2009 to 2010.
RUSSIA
Nuke use review requested
A group of lawmakers on Wednesday asked the Kremlin to review the nation’s rules for the use of nuclear weapons, amid tensions with the West. Participants in the hearings organized by the Federation Council’s Committee on Defense and Security suggested that the Security Council should draft a new version of the nuclear doctrine. Media reports cited the proposals as saying that the revised doctrine should in particular spell out a response to an attack on the country with hypersonic and other strategic nonnuclear weapons. The current military doctrine stipulates that Russia can use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack on it or its allies, or an aggression involving conventional weapons that threatens “the very existence of the state.”
UNITED STATES
Amtrak train cars separate
A New York City-bound Amtrak train became disabled on the night before Thanksgiving, one of the busiest travel days of the year, when two of its cars separated. Train 68 was heading from Montreal when the train experienced what Amtrak called a “mechanical issue” just before 7:30pm near Albany, New York. Chuck Reeves, a software engineer from Troy, New York, was on his way to his parents’ home on New York’s Long Island and had boarded the first car behind the locomotive in Albany. Shortly after the train pulled away, he said that he and other passengers heard a pop and a hiss, smelled electrical burning and felt a rush of cold air. “Everyone started turning around,” only to see there was no more train behind them, he said. The train soon slowed to a stop and a conductor left the detached cars behind and boarded his car, he added. Another train was brought in to take passengers on the rest of their journey.
CHINA
Car rams into schoolchildren
A car at about noon yesterday rammed into a group of schoolchildren crossing a street in front of an elementary school in Huludao, Liaoning Province, killing five people and injuring 18, state media said. Police took the driver into custody and are investigating the cause of the incident, China Central Television said on Sina Weibo. Unverified videos circulating social media show a car veering onto the wrong side of the road and plowing through the line of students. Other footage shows at least two small children lying unconscious and bleeding on the street. Victims of the crash are undergoing medical treatment, the broadcaster said.
INDIA
Man killed by isolated tribe
Authorities yesterday said that it might take “some days” to recover the body of an American man killed in a hail of arrows shot by a tribe untouched by modern civilization. John Allen Chau, 27, was attacked as he set foot last week on the remote North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal that is off-limits to visitors, police said. Regional police chief Dependra Pathak said that authorities sent a helicopter to the area and then a ship to identify where the incident took place. “We maintained a distance from the island and have not yet been able to spot the body. It may take some more days and ... [reconnaissance] of the area,” Pathak added. North Sentinel is home to the Sentinelese people, believed to number only about 150. “We have to take care that we must not disturb them or their habitat by any means. It is a highly sensitive zone and it will take some time,” Pathak said. Police said a murder case had been registered against “unknown” tribespeople and that six fishers and one other person who allegedly helped Chau get to the island were arrested.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese