GUATEMALA
Soldier gets 5,160-year term
A court on Wednesday sentenced a former soldier to 5,160 years in prison for the massacre of 171 people in what is considered one of the worst atrocities in the country’s 36-year civil war. Prosecutors said Santos Lopez participated in the 1982 mass killings of nearly all of the men, women and children in the farming village of Dos Erres. Lopez was accused of being part of an elite unit that was sent to Dos Erres to find members of a guerrilla group that had ambushed a military convoy. When the patrol failed to find the guerrillas or guns, they pulled villagers from their homes and raped many of the young girls, prosecutors said, adding that to cover up the rapes, they killed nearly everyone living there.
PANAMA
Martinelli’s sons arrested
Two sons of former president Ricardo Martinelli, who is accused of collecting bribes worth millions in the wide-ranging Odebrecht scandal, have been arrested in the US, officials said on Wednesday. “US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested unlawfully present Panamanian nationals Luis Martinelli-Linares and Ricardo Martinelli-Linares during a targeted enforcement operation ... on Nov. 20,” a statement issued to the media said. “Both men lawfully entered the US; however, their visas were revoked in 2017 and they have been unlawfully present in the US since that time.” Brazilian construction company Odebrecht has agreed to pay the government fines totaling US$220 million and cooperate with authorities. Andre Campos Rabello, Odebrecht’s former chief in Panama, had told a court that both sons took bribes amounting to US$6 million from 2009 to 2010.
RUSSIA
Nuke use review requested
A group of lawmakers on Wednesday asked the Kremlin to review the nation’s rules for the use of nuclear weapons, amid tensions with the West. Participants in the hearings organized by the Federation Council’s Committee on Defense and Security suggested that the Security Council should draft a new version of the nuclear doctrine. Media reports cited the proposals as saying that the revised doctrine should in particular spell out a response to an attack on the country with hypersonic and other strategic nonnuclear weapons. The current military doctrine stipulates that Russia can use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack on it or its allies, or an aggression involving conventional weapons that threatens “the very existence of the state.”
UNITED STATES
Amtrak train cars separate
A New York City-bound Amtrak train became disabled on the night before Thanksgiving, one of the busiest travel days of the year, when two of its cars separated. Train 68 was heading from Montreal when the train experienced what Amtrak called a “mechanical issue” just before 7:30pm near Albany, New York. Chuck Reeves, a software engineer from Troy, New York, was on his way to his parents’ home on New York’s Long Island and had boarded the first car behind the locomotive in Albany. Shortly after the train pulled away, he said that he and other passengers heard a pop and a hiss, smelled electrical burning and felt a rush of cold air. “Everyone started turning around,” only to see there was no more train behind them, he said. The train soon slowed to a stop and a conductor left the detached cars behind and boarded his car, he added. Another train was brought in to take passengers on the rest of their journey.
CHINA
Car rams into schoolchildren
A car at about noon yesterday rammed into a group of schoolchildren crossing a street in front of an elementary school in Huludao, Liaoning Province, killing five people and injuring 18, state media said. Police took the driver into custody and are investigating the cause of the incident, China Central Television said on Sina Weibo. Unverified videos circulating social media show a car veering onto the wrong side of the road and plowing through the line of students. Other footage shows at least two small children lying unconscious and bleeding on the street. Victims of the crash are undergoing medical treatment, the broadcaster said.
INDIA
Man killed by isolated tribe
Authorities yesterday said that it might take “some days” to recover the body of an American man killed in a hail of arrows shot by a tribe untouched by modern civilization. John Allen Chau, 27, was attacked as he set foot last week on the remote North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal that is off-limits to visitors, police said. Regional police chief Dependra Pathak said that authorities sent a helicopter to the area and then a ship to identify where the incident took place. “We maintained a distance from the island and have not yet been able to spot the body. It may take some more days and ... [reconnaissance] of the area,” Pathak added. North Sentinel is home to the Sentinelese people, believed to number only about 150. “We have to take care that we must not disturb them or their habitat by any means. It is a highly sensitive zone and it will take some time,” Pathak said. Police said a murder case had been registered against “unknown” tribespeople and that six fishers and one other person who allegedly helped Chau get to the island were arrested.
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
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