UKRAINE
Kyiv complains of treatment
Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba yesterday criticized the “second-class treatment” of Kyiv by some EU countries, after Germany said the war-torn country’s bid to join the bloc cannot be sped up. “Strategic ambiguity on Ukraine’s European perspective practiced by some EU capitals in the past years has failed and must end,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter. This had “only emboldened” Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said, adding that it had “hurt the feelings of Ukrainians.” Earlier yesterday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said there could be “no shortcuts” to Ukraine’s EU membership, adding that an exception for Kyiv would be unfair to the Western Balkan countries also seeking membership. “The accession process is not a matter of a few months or years,” he said. He nonetheless said that the bloc must find a “fast and pragmatic” way to help Kyiv.
GUATEMALA
Congress approves loan
Congress on Wednesday approved a US$500 million loan from the World Bank that the government has said would be used to pay down debt, freeing up funds for social spending. The loan was supported by the government and its allies, and passed with 86 votes in the 160-seat legislature. Minister of Finance Alvaro Gonzalez Ricci this month said that the “indispensable” loan would save funds that could be used for social spending. He said a 0.75 percent annual interest rate would save about 1.8 billion quetzales (US$234.8 million) over the loan’s 13-year period by substituting more expensive treasury bonds. “It is a rate that is impossible to obtain in international or local financial markets,” Gonzalez Ricci said.
SPAIN
Former king visiting
Former king Juan Carlos was yesterday expected to arrive in the country for his first visit since leaving nearly two years ago amid a cloud of financial scandals. The royal household said Juan Carlos would visit the northwestern town of Sanxenxo where a yachting event is scheduled to take place. On Monday, the 84-year-old is to travel to Madrid, where he is due to meet his son, King Felipe VI, and other members of the royal family. The statement from the royal palace, sent late on Wednesday, said Juan Carlos would return to Abu Dhabi on Monday, describing the city as the place where Juan Carlos had taken up “permanent and stable residence.” The visit reflects the former king’s desire to “travel frequently to Spain to visit family and friends,” it said. Juan Carlos left the country in August 2020 for Abu Dhabi, as Spanish and Swiss prosecutors mounted probes into alleged financial wrongdoings concerning him.
INDONESIA
Trapped ferry dislodged
A ferry carrying 800 people that had run aground was yesterday dislodged and continued on its journey, the military said. KM Sirimau, with 784 passengers and 55 crew members on board, was dislodged from shallow waters off East Nusa Tenggara Province at noon, head of the local naval base Dwi Yoga said. “With hard work, KM Sirimau, which had been stuck for two days, was released at 12pm Central Indonesia Time and it is now heading to the nearest port in Lewoleba,” he said. The ferry was later taken to Lewoleba port on the island of Lembata for checks before continuing its journey to the town of Maumere on the island of Flores. Passengers had started to worry after being stuck on the boat for days, passenger Itha said by telephone, adding that a woman was panicking because she ran out of milk formula for her five-month-old.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.