FRANCE
Artifacts to be returned
President Emmanuel Macron on Friday agreed to return 26 cultural artifacts to Benin “without delay,” a move that could put pressure on other former colonial powers to return African works of art to their countries of origin. The decision came as he received the findings of a study he commissioned on repatriating African treasures held by French museums. Macron agreed to return the works, mainly royal statues from the Palaces of Abomey — formerly the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey — taken by the French army during a war in 1892 and now in Paris’ Quai Branly museum. He also proposed gathering African and European partners in Paris next year to define a framework for an “exchange policy” for African art.
UNITED STATES
Teens steal small plane
Two teenagers on Thursday stole a small plane in a rural area of eastern Utah, flying it at low altitude over a highway and landing at a regional airport before being arrested, officials said. The teens, aged 14 and 15, took the single-engine propeller aircraft from a private airstrip in the small town of Jensen in the northeastern corner of Utah, the Uintah County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. They flew at low altitude over Highway 40 and were seen in the air above the area of Gusher, about 50km west of where they took off, the office said. The teens thought about continuing to fly west to a more populated area of Utah, but they decided to turn around and land the plane at the Vernal Regional Airport, about 25km from where they took off.
UNITED STATES
Judge dismisses MH370 case
A judge has dismissed nationwide litigation over the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in which victims’ families sought to hold the carrier, its insurer, Allianz SE, and Boeing Co liable for the still-unexplained disaster. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in Washington on Wednesday ruled that the wrongful death and product liability litigation, encompassing 40 lawsuits, did not belong in the US. She said the case belonged in Malaysia, which has an “overwhelming interest” in and “substantial nexus” to the March 8, 2014, disappearance of Flight MH370 with 239 people on board.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Chopper crash kills five
Five people have died after a helicopter crashed near a popular tourist area, authorities said. The EC20 helicopter disappeared late on Thursday after the pilot picked up four people at a hotel in Rio San Juan on the north coast, the director of the Investigative Commission of Aviation Accidents said. Colonel Emmanuel Souffront told reporters on Friday that the group was headed to the southeast coastal city of La Romana. Authorities said they lost contact with the helicopter about 39km northwest of their destination. No further information was immediately available.
ZIMBABWE
Hunters, pilot killed in crash
Four Finns on a hunting expedition died in a plane crash on Friday that also killed their pilot near the southern city of Masvingo, the Finnish consul’s wife told reporters. “There were four Finnish citizens and their pilot in the plane, they all died,” Sally Ward said. “It was cloudy and they were trying to get above the clouds.” The accident occurred near Renco, a gold mine on the outskirts of Masvingo, police spokesman Paul Nyathi said, adding that investigators had found a Finnish identity card and a passport at the scene.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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