BRAZIL
Petrobras workers end strike
Workers at state-owned oil giant Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) have ended a nearly three-week strike that left the firm scrambling to avoid a drop in production, labor unions said on Friday. About 21,000 workers — one-third of the total workforce — joined the mass walkout at the start of this month. They were protesting the closure of a subsidiary’s fertilizer plant in southern Parana state, with about 1,000 total layoffs. The company met with employee representatives after an arbitration hearing called by a labor court in Brasilia, after which an oil workers’ union announced an end to the strike. “An attempt will be made to increase financial compensation for the dismissed,” the court said. The court had earlier ruled that the strike was illegal and set a daily fine of up to US$115,000 for unions that did not comply with a return to work. The strike did not affect production thanks to the hiring of outsourced labor, Petrobras said. The company earlier this week announced a record net profit of US$10.2 billion for last year, an annual jump of more than 55 percent.
MEXICO
Hundreds protest projects
More than 1,000 people on Friday marched through the center of Mexico City in opposition to the government’s largest infrastructure projects. The protest brought together unions, environmentalists, students and representatives of indigenous communities, a mix that would seem a natural base for populist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, but which has become among his most vocal critics. Erika Cortez, a member of the Popular Organization Francisco Villa of the Independent Left from the Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa, said that she opposed the president’s Maya Train project that would move tourists around the Yucatan Peninsula. The train is one of Lopez Obrador’s signature initiatives, which he has said would spur economic development in the southeast, but has faced criticism for its environmental impact. Other demonstrators voiced opposition to a rail line that would traverse the nation, connecting the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as a huge new oil refinery and a gas-fired power plant. The march came one day after the anniversary of the death of activist Samir Flores Soberanes, who had protested a gas-fired power plant in Morelos state. Flores was killed days before a referendum on the nearly completed project and his slaying remains unsolved.
UNITED KINGDOM
Andrew pressed to testify
A yellow school bus with a banner depicting the face of Prince Andrew on Friday drove past Buckingham Palace, urging him to testify in the investigation of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The stunt organized by US lawyer Gloria Allred sought to pressure the prince to reveal what he might know about the disgraced financier. Allred represents some of Epstein’s victims and has demanded that Andrew cooperate. The message, featuring pictures of Andrew, said: “If you see this man, please ask him to call the FBI to answer their questions.” US Attorney Geoffrey Berman last month told reporters that Andrew has provided “zero cooperation” to the FBI and US prosecutors seeking to speak with him about Epstein. The statement by Berman, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, was the first official confirmation that the leading US law enforcement agency had sought — and failed — to obtain evidence from Andrew, despite his pledge to cooperate with legitimate law enforcement agencies.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
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