INDIA
Russia to lease third sub
New Delhi has signed a US$3 billion deal to lease a third Russian nuclear-powered submarine for 10 years, giving the nation a boost in the Indian Ocean, media reported yesterday. The deal — which reportedly took months to negotiate — comes as tensions run high between India and Pakistan, and as Chinese influence grows in the region. A Ministry of Defence spokesman declined to confirm the agreement, but the reports said that the submarine would be delivered by 2025.
INDONESIA
Flooding kills at least two
At least two people were killed and six more were missing after torrential rains and severe flooding, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people, the National Board for Disaster Management said yesterday. Heavy rain has pounded the nation for days, causing the Citarum River — dubbed “the world’s dirtiest” by the World Bank — on Java to burst its banks and deadly flash floods in the east. Floods and landslides killed a pair of residents in East Nusa Tenggara Province, the agency said. Six others are still missing and three people were injured, it added. The floods have affected more than 30,000 people in parts of West Java and East Java provinces, it said.
FINLAND
PM resigns over reforms
Prime Minister Juha Sipila yesterday tendered his government’s resignation after it failed to push through a social and healthcare reform package, the president’s office said. The announcement was made just five weeks ahead of legislative elections scheduled for April 14. Sipila has since 2015 headed a coalition made up of his Center Party, the conservative National Coalition and Blue Reform, a moderate faction spun off from the far right. Sipila has made health and social reform one of his top priorities, seeing a shake-up as necessary to cut the ballooning costs of treating an aging population. The reform has been a struggle over a decade and has divided successive governments.
CHINA
Interference ‘disastrous’
Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday issued a stern warning against interfering in or imposing sanctions on Venezuela, saying history offers a clear lesson about not “following the same old disastrous road.” Responding to a question on whether China still recognized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro or had had contact with the opposition, Wang said the sovereignty and independence of Latin American nations should be respected. “The internal affairs of every country should be decided by their own people. External interference and sanctions will only exacerbate the tension situation, and allow the law of the jungle to once again run amok,” Wang told his annual news conference.
ITALY
China agreement mulled
The government appears undecided over whether to sign an agreement with China endorsing its Belt and Road Initiative, amid pressure from the US to stand down. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Guglielmo Picchi said that further reflection is needed before signing the proposed agreement. “As of today, I don’t think we should proceed with the signing,” he tweeted on Wednesday. Undersecretary of State Michele Geraci told the foreign media that while the negotiations are not over, the deal could be signed when Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visits Italy later this month. On Wednesday, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang (陸慷) criticized comments by the White House. A spokesman told the Financial Times that the US believes the initiative benefits China, not Italy. “The US statement is very absurd,” Lu said. “As a large economy and a big country, Italy is very clear about its own interests and can independently make its own policies and judgements.”
MEXICO
Migrants killed in crash
A truck packed with Central American migrants on Thursday swerved off a highway in the south, leaving at least 25 dead and 32 injured, officials said. The accident happened in Chiapas State, which borders Guatemala, the state attorney general’s office said in a statement. The 3 tonne truck ran off the road and overturned, it added. The truck involved in this accident was carrying an estimated 80 people, Isidro Hernandez of the local Red Cross said. Some who were not injured might have fled. The fatalities include at least one minor, Hernandez added.
UNITED STATES
Secret list tracked advocates
Authorities created a secret database of journalists and campaigners linked to a caravan of Central Americans who tried to enter the US last year from Mexico, NBC reported. In some cases, authorities flagged their passports for alerts, the San Diego, California, affiliate of NBC said. It cited documents leaked to it by a source in the Department of Homeland Security. It said the documents list people to be screened at the US-Mexico border. They included 10 journalists, seven of them US citizens, a US lawyer and 47 people who were labeled as organizers, instigators or with “unknown” roles.
BRAZIL
Expedition looks for tribe
A government agency has sent off a rare and high-risk expedition hoping to contact a small, isolated group in the Amazon and reunite its members with some of their relatives, saying that the move is necessary to avoid bloodshed in an area near the border with Peru. A team of nearly two dozen sponsored by the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) headed up the Coari River over the weekend looking for the group of at least 22 people, who are members of the widespread Korubo indigenous community in Amazonas State. The army, police and Ministry of Health are backing the initiative, which could take weeks. Brazilian law says that contact with isolated tribes can be used only as a last resort to preserve their lives. Bruno Pereira, FUNAI’s coordinator for isolated indigenous peoples, said that the objective is to ease tensions between a group of Korubos and a group of indigenous Matis who live about 20km away. The Matis contacted the Korubos in 2013, initially in a friendly manner, but the next year there was a deadly clash between the groups, FUNAI said. The Matis have repeatedly requested an intervention because they believe the Korubos will want revenge soon, Pereira said.
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
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema