GUATEMALA
Ex-president Colom dies
Former president Alvaro Colom died on Monday aged 71 from esophageal cancer, his former security minister Carlos Menocal said. Colom, who led the nation from 2008 to 2012, was very sick and released from hospital a week and a half ago, Menocal said. “To his family and friends I express my heartfelt condolences, may God comfort them in the face of such an irreparable loss,” President Alejandro Giammattei said on Twitter. Colom was arrested in 2018 as part of a local corruption investigation looking at buses bought during his administration for a large public transport program. When he died, Colom was under preventative home arrest still awaiting a trial.
UKRAINE
Kyiv sanctions 22 Russians
The government has imposed sanctions on 22 Russians associated with the Russian Orthodox Church for what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said was their support of genocide under the cloak of religion. The list includes Mikhail Gundayev, who represents the Russian Orthodox Church in the World Council of Churches and other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, a decree issued by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine showed. Russian state media reported that Gundayev is a nephew of the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, who was sanctioned by Kyiv last year. “Sanctions have been imposed against 22 Russian citizens who, under the guise of spirituality, support terror and genocidal policy,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly address late on Monday.
HAITI
IMF approves US$105m aid
The IMF on Monday approved emergency aid of US$105 million for the nation, which has long been mired in a humanitarian crisis that has been exacerbated by global inflation. The funds should enable the Caribbean country to “support those most affected by food price rises through feeding programs and cash and in-kind transfers to vulnerable households” IMF managing director Antoinette Sayeh said in a statement. The money was released through the IMF’s “Food Shock Window,” opened at the end of September for a period of one year. The measure is used to provide rapid access to emergency funds to states facing food insecurity, particularly in the event of unexpected shocks in the import of grains or a sudden rise in prices. The nation also faces a “health crisis” in the form of a cholera epidemic and “serious security problems,” the IMF said.
BRAZIL
‘Drug lord’ murder suspect
Police have strong evidence that an alleged drug trafficker ordered the murders of British journalist Dom Phillips, 57, and indigenous activist Bruno Pereira, 41, in the Amazon in June last year, Eduardo Fontes, chief of federal police in the Amazonas region, said on Monday. Police believe Ruben da Silva Villar, who uses the nickname “Colombia” and is in custody, ordered the murders of the two men, Fontes said. He added that the murder case was “90 percent” wrapped up and “practically closed.” Phillips and Pereira were shot dead on June 5 in Valle de Javari, a remote area where illegal fishing, mining and logging are rife. Phillips, a freelance journalist whose work had appeared in the Guardian and the New York Times, was traveling with Pereira doing research for a book on the Amazon. Fontes said Villar had provided weapons and boats to three men accused of the actual murders, and later paid for the lawyer for one of them.
FRANCE
Women, children repatriated
France repatriated 15 women and 32 children held in extremist prison camps in northeastern Syria, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. “The minors were handed over to the services in charge of child assistance and will be subject to medical and social monitoring,” the ministry said in a statement. It added that “the adults have been handed over to the competent judicial authorities.” Over the past decade, thousands of extremists in Europe traveled to Syria to become fighters with the Islamic State group, often taking their families to live in the self-declared “caliphate” it set up in territory seized in Iraq and Syria. Since the “caliphate” fell in 2019, the return of family members of fighters who were captured or killed has been a thorny issue for European countries.
CHINA
Mercury drops to record low
A cold spell that spread across the country last week broke records on Sunday, the coldest day the country says it has ever documented. The temperature in Mohe, a city in northern Heilongjiang Province, dropped to minus-53°C on Saturday, the Heilongjiang Meteorological Bureau said on its official social media account. That beat the country’s previous record low of minus-52.3°C, which occurred in 1969. Twelve weather stations in Heilongjiang also reported temperatures close to or below their own low-temperature records this past weekend, the bureau said. The cold snap is expected to continue this week, with temperatures in some parts of Jilin Province continuing to drop by as much as 16°C over the next few days, the China Meteorological Administration said.
CYBERCRIME
N Korea stole US$100m: FBI
Two hacking groups linked to North Korea were responsible for the theft of US$100 million in an attack on a crypto service last year, the FBI said on Monday. The Lazarus and APT38 outfits perpetrated the June attack on US-based blockchain specialist Harmony’s Horizon Bridge, the FBI said in a statement. Horizon is an example of software that allows crypto tokens to move between different blockchains. Such cross-chain bridges became a soft target for hackers last year, with about US$2 billion of crypto assets stolen in 13 separate bridge hacks, according to Chainalysis. On Jan. 13, the North Korea-linked hackers used a privacy protocol called Railgun to launder US$60 million worth of ether, the FBI said. Some of this was sent to several crypto exchanges and converted to bitcoin, the bureau said. Zhao Changpeng (趙長鵬), founder of the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance Holdings Ltd, said on Twitter last week that his firm helped the Huobi platform to freeze some the funds and recover 124 bitcoins. Lazarus was also blamed for the US$600 million Ronin bridge hack.
AUSTRALIA
Calls grow to ban rapper
Pressure is building from politicians and anti-hate groups for the government to ban rapper Ye after reports over the weekend said he would visit soon. The country’s Anti Defamation Commission described Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, as a “hate preacher,” and said he must not be allowed into the country. “His presence is dangerous, because it will give him a platform to keep peddling his anti-Jewish propaganda,” Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the Anti Defamation Commission, told Australia’s Seven News.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
The US will help bolster the Philippines’ arsenal and step up joint military exercises, Manila’s defense chief said, as tensions between Washington and China escalate. The longtime US ally is expecting a sustained US$500 million in annual defense funding from Washington through 2029 to boost its military capabilities and deter China’s “aggression” in the region, Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro said in an interview in Manila on Thursday. “It is a no-brainer for anybody, because of the aggressive behavior of China,” Teodoro said on close military ties with the US under President Donald Trump. “The efforts for deterrence, for joint resilience
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