PHILIPPINES
Kidnapping suspect arrested
A second suspect in the kidnapping of an American man, who police say was likely killed by his captors, has been arrested, police said yesterday. Elliot Eastman was snatched from his home on Mindanao island on Oct. 17 last year. Police said his kidnappers shot him dead that day when he tried to escape. Jakaria Jamani, a resident of Sibuco, was arrested at sea on Tuesday and was being held without bail while awaiting trial for the kidnapping, police said in a statement. The statement described him as the “mastermind/planner” of the abduction.
Photo: EPA-EFE
VIETNAM
Court critic’s trial begins
Tran Dinh Trien, former deputy head of the Hanoi Bar Association and a former lawyer, yesterday went on trial over Facebook posts in which he criticized court officials. Charged with “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon state interests,” the 65-year-old faces up to seven years in jail if found guilty by the court in Hanoi. Prosecutors accused him of posting Facebook articles “without verified evidence ... undermining the prestige of the court,” Tuoi Tre newspaper said. The Facebook posts over which he is charged were uploaded in April and May last year. In them, he criticized the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who he said prevented defendants’ family members from attending trials, and journalists and lawyers from recording video during open trials, Human Rights Watch said.
Photo: AFP
INDIA
Six killed in stampede
At least six people were crushed to death on Wednesday at a Hindu religious gathering, with several more injured, officials said yesterday. A huge crowd had gathered to collect entrance tokens to visit the Sri Venkateswara Swamy Temple in Andhra Pradesh when the stampede broke out. “The unfortunate incident ... has claimed the lives of six devotees. I pray to god to give peace to the departed souls,” said Prem Kumar Jain, spokesman of the state’s ruling Telugu Desam Party.
MEXICO
Sheinbaum mocks Trump
President Claudia Sheinbaum responded sarcastically on Wednesday to US president-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” Standing before a global map at a news conference, Sheinbaum proposed dryly that North America should be renamed “America Mexicana,” or “Mexican America,” because a document from 1814 that preceded the constitution referred to it that way. “That sounds nice, no?” she added with a sarcastic tone. She also said the Gulf of Mexico had been named that way since 1607.
UNITED STATES
Greenland’s value backed
Greenland is important for national security, Representative Mike Waltz told Fox News on Wednesday, following comments by president-elect Donald Trump suggesting that Washington should take control of the island. Waltz, who was tapped to be Trump’s national security adviser, was asked about Trump wanting control over the arctic island. “You have Russia that is trying to become king of the arctic, with 60-plus icebreakers, some of them nuclear powered,” he said. “We have two and one just caught on fire.” Waltz added: “This is about critical minerals. This is about natural resources. This is about, as the polar ice caps pull back, the Chinese are now cranking out icebreakers and pushing up there as well. So it’s oil and gas. It’s our national security.”
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
SHOW OF SUPPORT: The move showed that aggression toward Greenland is a question for Europe and Canada, and the consequences are global, not just Danish, experts said Canada and France, which adamantly oppose US President Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, were to open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital yesterday, in a strong show of support for the local government. Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons. Trump last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence. A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns
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