GEORGIA
Armenia hoping for peace
Armenia hopes to conclude a peace agreement with Azerbaijan in the coming months and establish diplomatic relations with it, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said yesterday at a forum in Tbilisi that was also attended by his Azerbaijani and Georgian counterparts. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in conflict for three decades over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, with Baku last month launching a lightning offensive to retake it. The two countries have since both declared willingness to sign a peace deal, though progress has been fitful and regular border skirmishes have continued. Pashinyan also said that Armenia hopes to open its border with Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan, to citizens of third countries and holders of diplomatic passports. Azerbaijani Prime Minister Ali Asadov said that Baku had been committed to peace and the restoration of transports links with Armenia since 2020, but that progress hinged on Yerevan’s willingness to act.
PAKISTAN
Deportation centers set up
The nation is setting up deportation centers for illegal migrants, including an estimated 1.7 million Afghans, officials said yesterday. Anyone found staying in the country illegally from Wednesday next week would be arrested and sent to the deportation centers. Jan Achakzai, a spokesman for the southwestern Baluchistan government, said three deportation centers are being set up, including one in Quetta. Azam Khan, the caretaker chief minister for the northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, said the region would have three deportation centers. More than 60,000 Afghans have returned home since the crackdown was announced, he said. Caretaker Minister of the Interior Sarfraz Bugti has said there would be no deadline extension.
AUSTRALIA
Seven arrested in probe
Police have arrested seven members of an alleged Chinese crime syndicate for laundering hundreds of millions of dollars through one of the nation’s largest money remitters after a giant sting operation. Police yesterday said that from 2020 to this year, the Chinese Long River crime syndicate laundered A$229 million (US$144.6 million) through the Changjiang Currency Exchange, one of the nation’s largest independently owned remitters. More than 330 police and other specialists on Wednesday arrested seven alleged members of the syndicate, including four Chinese nationals, during 20 search warrants across five states. Police said the syndicate camouflaged the proceeds of cyberscams, illicit goods trafficking and other crime within the exchange’s mostly lawful daily transactions, which were as high as A$100 million. The proceeds allegedly funded an extravagant lifestyle of expensive restaurants, private jets and luxury homes, one valued at more than A$10 million. Police have quarantined more than A$50 million in assets.
SOUTH KOREA
K-pop star under probe
K-pop star G-Dragon, of the wildly successful, but problem-plagued band BIGBANG, is under investigation for alleged drug use, police said yesterday, becoming the latest in a string of entertainers to face such a probe. Police in Incheon said they had “opened an investigation” into G-Dragon’s case, but declined to provide details of the allegations against him. The disclosure comes less than a week after police launched an investigation into Parasite actor Lee Sun-kyun, who is accused of using marijuana and other psychoactive drugs.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS