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.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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