MEXICO
Colima Volcano erupts
A volcano in the nation’s west erupted, spewing ash more than 7km into the air and sending lava down its flanks. The activity at the Colima Volcano began on Thursday and continued into Friday morning. The volcano is also known as the Volcano of Fire. Civil Protection Agency director Luis Felipe Puente tweeted on Friday that preventive protocols were activated. A statement from the Colima State Civil Protection Agency on Thursday said the initial eruption occurred just after 11am. Ash was falling to the southwest of the crater. People were advised to recognize a 5km perimeter around the peak.
VENEZUELA
Bolivar boats as value sinks
Origami-like boats made from the nation’s rapidly depreciating bolivar bills sit on the cash register of a small fruit and vegetable store in Caracas. Cashier Marisol Garcia makes the bolivar boats to illustrate roaring inflation and the currency’s tumble on the black market, where even the country’s biggest bill is worth just US$0.16. “People ask: ‘What’s that?’ I say: ‘Our reality,’” Garcia said. “We’re sinking.” The bolivar sank past 600 per US dollar on Thursday, compared with 73 a year ago, according to anti-government Web site DolarToday. “We’re behind. We’re going to have to make six little boats out of 100 bolivar bills,” added Garcia, who empties her cash register more than 20 times a day and stores notes in shoe boxes in a locked cabinet.
CANADA
Stamp honors author
Canada Post on Friday issued a stamp in honor of Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro, the writer of short stories whose style has often been compared to that of Russian great Anton Chekhov. The stamp, issued on Munro’s 84th birthday, combines a black-and-white photograph of the author taken by her daughter, a sample of her handwriting and an image of her hometown Wingham, in Ontario province. Many believe that Wingham inspired the rural settings of several of her stories. “Alice Munro is not only one of Canada’s most critically acclaimed writers, but also one of the most popular,” said Minister of Transportation Lisa Raitt, who oversees Canada Post. Munro, who won the Nobel literature prize in 2013, is known for short stories — often set in small towns — that focus on the frailties of the human condition. Canada Post president and CEO Deepak Chopra said: “Munro’s literary talent, wisdom and humanity, reflected in her stories over several decades, have earned her recognition that few writers in any language or country attain.”
UNITED STATES
Tweet pre-empts speech
A technical glitch put Republican Scott Walker into the presidential race prematurely on Friday, days ahead of his official announcement speech. “Scott is in. Are you? Join our team today,” Walker said in a tweet accompanied by an image of him waving with the headline: “Scott Walker is running for president. Join the team.” The tweet was later deleted. It was unclear why Walker’s tweet was inadvertently sent. A Twitter representative said in an e-mailed statement: “We’re looking into today’s issue and we’ve determined the Walker team was not at fault.” Walker, a two-term governor of Wisconsin, is to announce his bid for the Republican presidential nomination tomorrow in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The Walker team responded to the accident by saying: “Stay tuned for Governor Walker’s announcement on Monday at 5pm CT [central time].”
SPAIN
Four gored in Pamplona
Four people were gored on the fifth day of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, the Red Cross said. One bull charged into runners packing the narrow streets and gored one deeply in a thigh while cutting another runner’s leg as it lifted its head. Red Cross spokesman Jose Aldaba said four people were receiving treatment after being gored yesterday, while at least five others were recovering from bruises. Normally, six bulls run in the San Fermin festival, but on this occasion one of them turned back and returned to its corral. The run covers 850m from a holding pen on the edge of town to the central bullring where the large animals face matadors and almost certain death in afternoon bullfights.
PHILIPPINES
Durian candy sickens 1,350
More than 1,000 students in the south have fallen ill after eating durian-flavored sweets, a provincial governor said yesterday. Up to 1,350 elementary and high-school students were hospitalized in nine towns overnight after developing stomach cramps, diarrhea, vomiting and headaches late on Friday, Surigao del Sur Governor Johnny Pimentel told reporters. As of yesterday, 250 remained hospitalized, but were expected to be discharged later, Pimentel said. Nine men and women accused of selling the sweets from a van to children on their lunch breaks have been arrested, he said. Police are investigating whether the sweets were expired or were deliberately laced with poison, Pimentel added. “The suspects had a plan to sell only to schoolchildren. They went around nine towns the whole day selling candies,” he said. The group told police that they did not mean to poison the children, he added. Pimentel said police were still trying to establish why the group had traveled about 300km from their home province to sell the sweets.
FRANCE
Fashion police: Beards clear
Police officers have been given approval to sport beards and tattoos on the job so long as they respect certain conditions, officials said on Friday. Responding to a police officers’ union request, officials said officers may wear beards on duty “as long as they are clean and well-trimmed” and may let stubble grow two or three days between shaves. Police officers of both genders hankering for tattoos are free to get inked as long as the result “is not contrary to [police] ethics” by carrying religious, political or racist messages, or is otherwise capable of “provoking clashes with the population.” In addition to the general authorization, the police union has asked officials to provide detailed directives about sporting facial hair and tattoos while in uniform.
CHINA
One killed, 12 hurt in knifing
A knife-wielding assailant allegedly stabbed a woman to death and injured 12 people in Shenzhen yesterday, Xinhua news agency said, in the latest of a series of attacks that have unnerved the country. Police said the injured were all hospitalized in stable condition. The incident, attributed to a 32-year-old man, appeared to have been provoked by a marital dispute, Xinhua quoted the Southern Metropolitan Daily newspaper as saying. Public sensitivity to knife attacks in the nation has been heightened by a series of incidents including a mass stabbing at a train station in March last year in Kunming that left 31 dead. Authorities blamed that attack on separatist militants from Xinjiang.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
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