CAMBODIA
Thailand releases 18 soldiers
Thailand yesterday released 18 Cambodian soldiers held for five months as prisoners of war, days after a fresh truce between the nations ended weeks of deadly fighting along their contested frontier. Some of the soldiers, with closely cropped hair, smiled, waved and gestured with their palms pressed together to cheering crowds through the windows of a bus in the border province of Pailin, video from state television showed. “I am so happy. I can’t wait to see him. I miss him so much,” said 51-year-old Voeung Vy, the father of one of the soldiers captured in late July. He said he would welcome his son home in the capital, Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh said it “remains hopeful that this release will significantly contribute to building mutual trust.”
Photo: AFP
YEMEN
UAE pulling out of Yemen
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Tuesday said it was pulling its remaining forces out of Yemen, following a Saudi Arabian demand to withdraw within 24 hours as tensions escalate over a sweeping offensive by Abu Dhabi-backed separatists. The Emirati Ministry of National Defense said it was withdrawing “counterterrorism teams ... of its own volition.” The Presidential Leadership Council and Saudi Arabia, the UAE’s rival powerbroker in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, have both demanded Emirati troops pull out. The withdrawal follows a strike on Tuesday against an Emirati shipment, that Saudi Arabia said contained weapons for separatists.
PERU
Conductor dies in train crash
A head-on collision between two trains on the line that services Machu Picchu killed one person and injured at least 40 others, authorities said. The deceased was the conductor of one of the two trains, according to the prosecutor’s office in Cusco, the city closest to the famous Inca citadel. Officials said they were working to identify the injured train passengers, many of them foreign visitors and most of them seriously hurt. Videos sent by passengers to the RPP television channel showed injured victims lying next to the tracks with two damaged locomotives standing idle nearby.
BRAZIL
Rio wins party record
Rio de Janeiro has been awarded the Guinness world record for the largest-ever New Year’s Eve celebration hosted by a city, for an hours-long free concert that gathered 2.5 million people on Copacabana beach last year. Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes on Tuesday received a plaque from a Guinness World Records representative on the main stage prepared for this year’s installment, also on Copacabana, that was to feature legendary Brazilian singer Gilberto Gil. Paes described the award as an honor, and said “no other city in the world organizes events that bring together so many people with such consistency.”
SOUTH AFRICA
Dozens die from circumcision
At least 41 young men have died as a result of circumcision procedures as part of traditional initiation activities in South Africa in November and last month, authorities said on Tuesday. Traditional initiation is a rite of passage into manhood for young men that is practiced annually by ethnic groups in Africa, including parts of South Africa. Among them are the Xhosa, Ndebele, Sotho and Venda communities. Despite laws that force initiation schools to be registered with authorities, it has not stopped the proliferation of illegal initiation schools where many of the deaths are reported.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
RSS