BRAZIL
Partygoers trash beach
The 2 million revelers who celebrated New Year’s Eve on Rio de Janeiro’s famed Copacabana Beach left behind a calling card on Friday: 315 tonnes of trash for the Olympic host city to cart away. An army of nearly 1,200 workers and a fleet of 250 trash trucks began working at dawn to haul away the mountain of refuse strewn over 6km of beach. In some instances, workers had to continue their clean-up duties while weaving between exhausted New Year’s partygoers who stayed on the beach catching up on their sleep long after most of the merry-makers had gone home. Within about four hours of starting their labors, the beach was restored to its mostly pristine state, and was ready to welcome a new round of visitors on what looked to be scorching beach weather to start the New Year: Sunny and about 40°C.
EL SALVADOR
Murders mark new year
The nation, suffering an epidemic of violence, opened the new year with 15 more people gunned down, officials said on Friday. Among them were two men, two women and an 11-year-old child slain in the early hours by men dressed as police, who stormed into two humble dwellings and sprayed them with gunfire. The killings occurred in the Los Cerritos community about 160km east of San Salvador. In a second incident, National Police Commissioner Veronica Uriarte said agents on patrol encountered five alleged gang members in Valle Nuevo just south of San Salvador and exchanged gunfire, killing five. Five more people were killed in various incidents, two in rural Nueva Concepcion north of the capital, two in the municipality of San Miguel in the east, and a suspected gang member in El Espino, near the capital. According to official statistics, 2014 ended with 3,942 homicides in the country, 1,429 more than 2013. According to preliminary figures, last year will have ended with more than 6,670 homicides, an average of 18 violent deaths per day.
GUATEMALA
Prison fight turns deadly
A fight at an overcrowded prison killed at least eight prisoners and wounded 20, Minister of the Interior Eunice Mendizabal said on Friday. An altercation between two inmates turned into a battle between rival gangs at the prison in Puerto Barrios, about 185km northeast of the capital, said Mendizabal, who arrived at the prison after the incident. Mendizabal said there were nearly 1,000 prisoners in the prison that was designed to hold 400. The incident was the latest in a string of deadly prison fights in the Central American country in recent years. In November, 16 prisoners were killed in a prison riot.
VENEZUELA
Climate delays gas export
The nation’s state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), has delayed the export of natural gas to Colombia because of climate factors, the Colombian Mines and Energy Ministry said on Friday. In a letter to the Colombian government on Wednesday, PDVSA said the exports would not begin because of “climate variability,” the ministry said in a statement. The exports are part of a deal between the two countries, which includes provisions for the neighbors to supply their own markets if necessary before exporting. “The contract specifies the delivery of 39 million cubic feet [1.1 million cubic meters] a day from Venezuela, which corresponds to just over 3 percent of daily supply in Colombia,” the statement said. Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol has asked PDVSA to give a new date by which the exports could begin.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
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