JAPAN
Ghosn accomplices face jail
Prosecutors are seeking jail sentences of nearly three years for an American father-son duo who admitted to helping former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn jump bail and flee Japan, they said yesterday. The prosecutors told a Tokyo court they are seeking a sentence of two years, 10 months for former special forces operative Michael Taylor, and two years, six months for his son, Peter. “Michael Taylor ... played a leading role. His responsibility is extremely grave,” one of the prosecutors said, calling Ghosn’s “unprecedented” December 2019 escape a “sophisticated and bold crime.” The Taylors have been in custody since their arrest in May last year in the US for helping smuggle Ghosn onto a private jet in an audio equipment case, so he could fly to Lebanon, which has no extradition agreement with Japan. Ghosn had led Nissan for nearly two decades, but was arrested in 2018 on allegations of financial crimes, which he denies.
AUSTRALIA
Nation to cut arrivals by half
Australia yesterday announced a dramatic cut in the number of people who would be allowed to enter the country, as it struggles to contain COVID-19 cluster infections that plunged major cities into lockdown. With almost half of the nation’s population under stay-at-home orders, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that quotas for overseas arrivals would be cut by about 50 percent to help prevent further outbreaks. Under the “zero COVID” strategy, just 6,000 people are allowed to enter Australia on overseas commercial flights each week, and arrivals must undergo mandatory two weeks hotel quarantine. That quota would be cut to about 3,000 by the middle of this month, Morrison said, although the government would step up its private repatriation flights. Morrison announced the decision amid growing anger over repeated snap lockdowns, the leakiness of hotel quarantine facilities and what critics have dubbed a vaccine “stroll out.”
UNITED KINGDOM
MP elected in key vote
The sister of murdered lawmaker Jo Cox yesterday was narrowly elected to her old seat in parliament in a by-election seen as a make-or-break for Keir Starmer, the embattled leader of the opposition Labour Party. The by-election was closely watched as the seat of Batley and Spen lies in Labour’s traditional northern English heartlands, a region where Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party have increasingly been making inroads. Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater managed to see off her Conservative rival Ryan Stephenson by a slim margin of 323 votes, winning 35.27 percent of the vote overall. “I’m absolutely delighted that the people of Batley and Spen have rejected division and they’ve voted for hope,” Leadbeater said after the results were announced. The seat was previously held by her sister, Cox, who was murdered by a far-right extremist during the febrile Brexit referendum campaign in 2016.
UNITED STATES
Federal executions halted
The Department of Justice is halting federal executions after a historic use of capital punishment by the administration of former president Donald Trump, which carried out 13 executions in six months. Attorney General Merrick Garland made the announcement on Thursday night, saying he was imposing a moratorium on federal executions, while the department conducts a review of its policies and procedures. He gave no timetable.
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
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