PAKISTAN
Indian guard returned
Islamabad yesterday handed over an Indian border guard who was captured a day after an April attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people, India’s paramilitary border guard said. The attack near the tourist town of Pahalgam sparked a four-day conflict between the two nations that ended with a ceasefire on Saturday. Indian Border Security Force soldier “Purnam Kumar Shaw, who had been in the custody of Pakistan Rangers since 23 April 2025, was handed over to India,” the force said in a statement. The handover was “conducted peacefully and in accordance with established protocols,” it said.
Photo: AFP / Indian Border Security Force
COLOMBIA
Ministry hails China deal
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday hailed a “historic” deal with China that would bring Bogota into China’s Belt and Road Initiative. “Colombia and China signed a cooperation plan for the Belt and Road Initiative today,” the ministry wrote on X early yesterday morning, calling it a “historic step that opens up new opportunities for investment, technological cooperation, and sustainable development for both countries.” The agreement came on the sidelines of a gathering of Latin American leaders in Beijing during which Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged US$9.2 billion in credit toward “development.”
Photo: EPA-EFE / Xinhua / Huang Jingwen
UNITED STATES
Menendez terms reduced
Erik and Lyle Menendez have a new shot at freedom after 35 years behind bars for murdering their parents after Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic on Tuesday reduced the brothers’ sentences from life in prison without parole to 50 years to life, making them immediately eligible for parole. The state parole board must decide whether to release them. The judge’s decision followed months of pushback from prosecutors who opposed resentencing, arguing that the brothers had not taken adequate responsibility for their crimes. Ultimately prosecutors did not call any witnesses, saying they had presented all of their evidence. “On Aug. 20, 1989, I killed my mom and dad. I make no excuses and also no justification,” Lyle Menendez said, choking up as he addressed the room. “The impact of my violent actions on my family ... is unfathomable.” Jesic issued his decision immediately after the brothers spoke. The hearing was slated to last two days, but Jesic made his decision in one. The brothers were convicted in 1996 for murdering their father, Jose Menendez — a record executive — and their mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills home in 1989. While defense attorneys argued the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors said the brothers killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
Photo: EPA-EFE / Xinhua / Huang Jingwen
UNITED STATES
Senate confirms Troy Meink
The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Troy Meink as the secretary of the air force, putting a former KC-135 tanker aircraft navigator and space expert in charge of the service. The vote was 74-25. Meink has almost four decades of experience in the military and in government, including managing some of the nation’s most sensitive satellite intelligence capabilities and the military’s space portfolio. He previously served as a deputy of the National Reconnaissance Office. “Your leadership is exactly what we need to refocus the Department of Defense on its core mission — lethality, readiness, and putting the warfighter first,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media.
Photo: Bloomberg
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
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