CHILE
Nation invited to G20 summit
Chile for the first time has been invited to take part in a G20 summit, Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno said on Thursday. “This recognizes that the world has changed and that emerging countries have a more important role to play,” he told a press conference. He said the June 18-19 summit in Mexico would provide the nation with an opportunity to “participate on the front lines of the economic and financial debate, in the face of the uncertain global economic future.”
MEXICO
‘Miracle cure’ ads banned
The government has moved to ban advertising for the plethora of so-called “miracle cures” for weight loss, sagging body parts and more serious illnesses. The new rules require that any product that makes a therapeutic claim would first have to prove it is listed in the country’s pharmaceutical register. The register requires scientific proof of effectiveness. The new rules greatly increase fines for newspapers or TV stations that run ads for unregistered products. The country’s top medicine safety official said on Thursday that 80 percent of deceptive advertising in the country involves miracle cures, with 274 deceptive products having been identified so far.
MEXICO
More held over trafficking
Authorities have detained three more people and interviewed 15 Irish nationals in a probe into an alleged child-trafficking ring that aimed to pass babies on for adoption. A spokesman for the prosecutors’ office in Jalisco State said on Thursday that two men and one woman had been detained the previous day. Nine people are now being held, after six women were detained in the past week. Ten babies, aged from two months to two years, have also been taken into custody. “Four of them showed signs of sexual abuse,” the prosecutors’ office said in a statement, adding that it was carrying out a separate investigation. The suspects included a taxi driver believed to have transported the children and a 21-year-old woman who was denounced by her family when she tried to negotiate the sale of her two sons, sparking the investigation.
UNITED STATES
Shooter faces 20 years
An Old West gun battle re-enactor in South Dakota who wounded three onlookers when he fired live rounds instead of blanks faces up to 20 years in prison after a plea deal. Paul Doering of Summerset pleaded guilty to a newly leveled charge of tampering on Thursday in federal court in Rapid City. In exchange, prosecutors dropped the original charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Federal Public Defender for the Dakotas Neil Fulton said Doering was “very sorry” people were hurt in what he described as an accident. Doering will be sentenced on April 9.
UNITED STATES
Captain jailed over crash
An Alaska fishing captain who led a crew on the program that spawned the cable TV show Deadliest Catch will serve five years in prison for a fatal crash. The Peninsula Clarion reports 60-year-old Clarence “Ole” Helgevold Jr was sentenced on Wednesday. He was originally charged with manslaughter in January last year when his car crashed with a snowmobile driven by George Larion, who was thrown from the snowmobile and died. Under the terms of an agreement, Helgevold pleaded guilty to reduced charges in May. He will serve four-and-a-half years for criminally negligent homicide and six months for driving under the influence.
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
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