PERU
PM pledges free markets
Prime Minister Anibal Torres on Wednesday pledged to pursue free-market policies in his first public remarks a day after a new Cabinet was formed by President Pedro Castillo. Torres also told a government news conference that the administration would promote a strong government that can prevent monopolies and other concentrations of economic power. “Our policy is the free market, free economic enterprise, free business, but with the participation of the state to control monopolies, oligopolies and [other] dominant positions,” Torres said.
UNITED STATES
Soup gaffe draws ridicule
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on Wednesday found herself the object of online ridicule after accusing Democratic leaders of “gazpacho” tactics on Capitol Hill, apparently conflating Nazi secret police with the Spanish soup. In an appearance on Tuesday on One America News, Greene described the Washington jail housing Capitol riot suspects as a “DC Gulag,” and denounced House of Representatives Speaker “Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police spying on members of Congress.” Greene later offered some self-mockery. “No soup for those who illegally spy on Members of Congress, but they will be thrown in the goulash,” she wrote on Twitter.
UNITED STATES
Assassin seeker sentenced
A Louisiana man has received the maximum 10-year sentence for trying to hire an assassin to kill his ex-wife while he was jailed on charges of sexually assaulting her two young daughters. District Judge Terry Doughty on Tuesday sentenced Steven Marcus Kelley, 48, of West Monroe, on a charge of using the mail to commission a murder for hire in December 2019. Kelley was in the Ouachita Parish jail awaiting trial on charges involving the rape and molestation of the girls, aged eight and 12, prosecutors said in October last year. Another inmate had recommended the person whom Kelley offered US$10,000 to shoot his ex-wife, prosecutors said. The person who had been recommended by the inmate brought the letter to police the morning after it arrived, they said.
UNITED STATES
Saget’s death explained
Bob Saget’s death last month stemmed from an accidental blow to the head, his family said in a statement on Wednesday. The comedian and Full House star was found dead on Jan. 9 in a Florida hotel room. He had performed in the area the night before as part of a stand-up tour. “The authorities have determined that Bob passed from head trauma,” the Saget family said. “They have concluded that he accidentally hit the back of his head on something, thought nothing of it and went to sleep. No drugs or alcohol were involved.”
UNITED STATES
Betty Davis dies
Pioneering funk singer, model and songwriter Betty Davis, who was credited with inspiring then-husband Miles Davis’ landmark fusion of jazz and more contemporary sounds, has died. She was 77. Davis died on Wednesday after a brief illness, said Danielle Maggio, a singer, adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh and associate producer of the 2017 documentary Betty: They Say I’m Different. Davis was the rare woman to make funk albums in the 1970s. “The reach of her influence & sonic lineage is immense,” author and critic Hanif Abdurraqib wrote on Twitter. “You’ve heard her, even if you think you’ve never heard her. I’m glad we got her at all.”
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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