FRANCE
Khashoggi suspect arrested
A suspected killer of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi was arrested at Roissy airport near Paris on Tuesday as he was about to board a flight to Riyadh, sources said. A police source named the man as Khaled Aedh al-Otaibi, a former Royal Guard of Saudi Arabia, who is mentioned in US and British sanctions lists as one of the killers, and was also on wanted lists in France.
UNITED STATES
Napoleon’s sword auctioned
The dress sword carried by Napoleon Bonaparte when he staged a coup in France in 1799 and five of his firearms sold at auction for US$2.87 million, auctioneers said on Tuesday. The lot, which was put up for sale by Illinois-based Rock Island Auction Co, was sold on Friday last week via telephone to a buyer who has remained anonymous, Rock Island Auction president Kevin Hogan told reporters. The sword and five ornamented pistols had initially been valued at US$1.5 million to US$3.5 million. With the sale, “the buyer of the Napoleon Garniture is taking home a very rare piece of history,” Hogan said. The sword, with its scabbard, was the “crown jewel” of the collection, the auctioneers said. The weapon was made by Nicolas-Noel Boutet, who was director of the state arms factory in Versailles. After being crowned emperor, Napoleon is believed to have presented the sword to French general Jean-Andoche Junot, but the general’s wife later sold it to pay off debts. It was then recovered by a London museum. A US collector was its last owner, but the man recently died, the auction house said.
UNITED STATES
Saule Omarova withdraws
President Joe Biden on Tuesday said that Saule Omarova’s nomination to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency would be withdrawn, as her candidacy faced resistance, with senators criticizing her vision for banking regulation and her birthplace in the former Soviet Union. Biden said in a statement that he accepted a withdrawal request from Omarova, a law professor at Cornell University who was born in Kazakhstan when it was part of the Soviet Union and immigrated to the US in 1991. In Senate committee hearings last month, she addressed questions about greater government oversight of the financial sector. That led Senator Pat Toomey to say that her ideas were a “socialist manifesto,” while Senator John Kennedy said: “I don’t know whether to call you ‘professor’ or ‘comrade.’”
UNITED NATIONS
Report warns over piracy
The surge of maritime piracy in Africa’s Gulf of Guinea is not just a threat to foreign ship and cargo owners, but also carries significant costs for the coastal nations, a new UN report said on Tuesday. The newest hot spot for piracy saw 106 incidents last year, with 623 seafarers affected by kidnapping, the Pirates of the Gulf of Guinea: A Cost Analysis for Coastal States report said. Most of the direct costs of the kidnappings and ship seizures would be borne by foreigners, with about US$5 million paid last year for kidnappings of mostly non-African ship crew members, said the report, which the Stable Seas research group contributed to. The countries along the Gulf of Guinea coast would pay far more than that to deal with the rise in piracy, from expanded patrols to rescue missions to greater security costs in ports, it said. Those costs could be more than US$1.9 billion annually, diverting important resources from other crucial needs, it said.
Over a few hours under gray skies, dozens of combat planes and helicopters roar on and off the flight deck of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier, in a demonstration of US military power in some of the world’s most hotly contested waters. MH-60 Seahawk helicopters and F/A-18 Hornet jets bearing pilot call signs such as “Fozzie Bear,” “Pig Sweat” and “Bongoo” emit deafening screams as they land in the drizzle on the Nimitz, which is leading a carrier strike group that entered the South China Sea two weeks ago. US Rear Admiral Christopher Sweeney, who is commanding the group, said the tour
RISING RISK: With no communication between nations flying jets closely over the South China Sea, one mistake by a pilot could quickly escalate a situation, an expert said The China Coast Guard (CCG) maintained near-daily patrols at key features across the disputed South China Sea last year, ramping up its presence as tensions over the waterway with Southeast Asian neighbors remain high, new tracking data shows. Patrols in the waters surrounding the Vanguard Bank off Vietnam, an area known for its oil and gas reserves and the site of repeated standoffs between Chinese and Vietnamese vessels, more than doubled to 310 days last year, the Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said. The number of days Chinese ships patrolled near Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗) in the Spratly Islands (Nansha
A court in Thailand sentenced a 27-year-old political activist to 28 years in prison on Thursday for posting messages on Facebook that it said defamed the country’s monarchy, while two young women charged with the same offense continued a hunger strike after being hospitalized. The court in the northern province of Chiang Rai found that Mongkhon Thirakot contravened the lese majeste law in 14 of 27 posts for which he was arrested in August last year. The law covers the king, queen and heirs, and any regent. The lese majeste law carries a prison term of three to 15 years per incident for
INSTABILITY: The country has seen a 33 percent increase in land that cultivates poppies since the military took over the government in 2021, a UN report said The production of opium in Myanmar has flourished since the military’s seizure of power, with the cultivation of poppies up by one-third in the past year, as eradication efforts have dropped and the faltering economy has led more people toward the drug trade, a UN report released yesterday showed. Last year, the first full growing season since the military wrested control of the country from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, saw a 33 percent increase in Myanmar’s cultivation area to 40,100 hectares, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime report said. “Economic, security and governance disruptions
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