COLOMBIA
Arrest of ex-rebels ordered
The Peace Tribunal has ordered the arrest of four rebel leaders who on Thursday appeared in a video pledging to resume their insurgency. The tribunal said in a statement that Luciano Marin, the former chief negotiator for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and top allies who appeared alongside him while heavily armed immediately lost their benefits under a 2016 peace deal on ending a half-century of bloody fighting. Under terms of the accord, rebels who confess their war crimes and compensate victims are spared jail sentences and protected from extradition to the US. The rebels said that they were taking up arms again because the conservative government of President Ivan Duque has not been upholding the accord and stood by as hundreds of leftists and 150 demobilized rebels were slain over the past three years.
EGYPT
Alexandria faces rising sea
The coastal city of Alexandria has survived invasions, fires and earthquakes since it was founded by Alexander the Great more than 2,000 years ago. However, the fabled port city now faces a new menace from climate change. Rising sea levels threaten to inundate poorer neighborhoods and archeological sites, prompting authorities to erect concrete barriers out at sea to hold back the surging waves. A severe storm in 2015 flooded large parts of the city, killing at least six people as two dozen homes collapsed, exposing weaknesses in the local infrastructure. The nation’s second-largest city is surrounded on three sides by the Mediterranean and backs up to a lake, making it uniquely susceptible to the rise in sea levels caused by global warming and the melting of the polar ice caps.
UNITED STATES
Escaped pigs return to farm
About 250 pigs have been causing a ruckus in a Vermont town over the past month after they escaped from their enclosure, but most of them had been returned as of Thursday thanks in part to a trail of hot dog buns and good old-fashioned corralling. Several farm workers and a couple of volunteers trudged up and down a dirt road trying to drive any pigs back to Sugar Mountain Farm in Orange, Vermont. They chased the animals into the brush and ditches, working together to position themselves so that they could corral the large sows and boars. Farm owner Walter Jeffries said that the fence was damaged by vandalism on Aug. 11. About 50 adult pigs and 200 piglets escaped, he said. Town Clerk Angela Eastman said that some pigs could still be spotted on or along a road near the farm, which is creating a nuisance for drivers and walkers and could be dangerous for the pigs. Jeffries faces a fine of nearly US$82,000, because the animals have been or are in the town right of way, she 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
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