NEW ZEALAND
Luxon backs Chinese cash
National Party leader Christopher Luxon yesterday said that he would “absolutely” accept money from China to fund new roads if his party wins October’s general election. Asked if he would turn to Beijing to fund a massive road infrastructure project worth NZ$24 billion (US$14.6 billion), Luxon told public broadcaster TVNZ: “Yeah, absolutely.” He added: “New Zealand is a country the same size [area] as Great Britain and Japan [separately], we have 5 million people in it,” he said. “A strong and resilient roading network will be absolutely critical to our future.” Asked if China would want something in return, such as being able to send its own workers to build the projects, Luxon replied: “That’s not going to happen,” and added: “That’s quite a xenophobic response and a pretty simplistic response.”
COLOMBIA
President’s son confesses
Nicolas Petro, son of President Gustavo Petro, on Thursday told prosecutors that money from a drug cartel filtered into the campaign of his father last year, a confession aimed at mitigating his own exposure to money-laundering charges. Nicolas Petro “received large sums of money from Mr Samuel Santander Lopesierra, known as The Marlboro Man,” prosecutor Mario Burgos said during a hearing. “Some of the money was used by Mr Nicolas Fernando Petro himself ... and the other part went into the 2022 presidential campaign,” Burgos said. Nicolas Petro was arrested on Saturday and denied the charges in a hearing on Wednesday, but changed his tune a day later when he announced his aim “to initiate a process of collaboration.” He said: “I will refer to new facts and situations that will help justice.” Local media reports said the younger Petro learned of new evidence held by prosecutors, and that Burgos offered to reduce his potential time in prison by half if he collaborated.
DENMARK
Border controls tightened
Police are tightening border controls following recent burnings of the Koran that have affected the security situation, the Ministry of Justice said on Thursday, following a similar decision by Sweden earlier in the week. Protesters in the two nations have burned and damaged in other ways several copies of the Koran in the past few months. “Authorities have today concluded that it is necessary at this time to increase the focus on who is entering Denmark, in order to respond to the specific and current threats,” the ministry said in a statement. Tighter border controls would initially be in place until Thursday next week, it said. “The recent Koran burnings have, as the security police have said, affected the current security situation,” Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard said in the statement.
THAILAND
Crash kills eight
Eight people were killed when a freight train struck a pickup truck crossing the tracks in an eastern province yesterday, authorities said. The crash at 2:20am also injured four people in the Muang District of Chachoengsao Province, State Railway of Thailand said. The 54-year-old driver, Wichai Yulek, told authorities he saw the approaching train and heard a warning horn. He slowed, but passengers in the vehicle urged him to keep going. When he realized the truck was headed for a collision, he could not stop in time, the railway agency said. The deceased include an 18 year old, two people in their 20s and five people over 55, while the injured victims included four men in their 20s, the railway said.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
TOWERING FIGURE: To Republicans she was emblematic of the excesses of the liberal elite, but lawmakers admired her ability to corral her caucus through difficult votes Nancy Pelosi, a towering figure in US politics, a leading foe of US President Donald Trump and the first woman to serve as US House of Representatives speaker, on Thursday announced that she would step down at the next election. Admired as a master strategist with a no-nonsense leadership style that delivered for her party, the 85-year-old Democrat shepherded historic legislation through the US Congress as she navigated a bitter partisan divide. In later years, she was a fierce adversary of Trump, twice leading his impeachment and stunning Washington in 2020 when she ripped up a copy of his speech to the
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