PANAMA
Canal ‘neutrality’ reiterated
The nation on Tuesday reaffirmed the “neutrality” of the Panama Canal and the “need to preserve” maritime transit routes amid the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz during the Middle East war. Minister of Foreign Affairs Javier Martinez-Acha reasserted the canal’s neutrality during a telephone call with Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar. The two ministers discussed the international situation “marked by tensions in the Middle East,” a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Martinez-Acha emphasized “the importance of the Panama Canal’s neutrality as a pillar of global trade,” and highlighted “the need to preserve stability in key maritime and energy transit routes,” it said.
PHoto: EPA
SOUTH KOREA
Yoon sentence increased
An appeals court yesterday increased the sentence of jailed former president Yoon Suk-yeol to seven years for obstructing justice, up from five years. A lower court had handed Yoon the initial sentence in January after he was found to have used presidential security agents to block his own arrest. Yoon and the prosecution lodged appeals — he argued that the arrest warrants against him were based on an “unlawful investigation,” while special prosecutors said his punishment should be 10 years given his “egregious” crimes.
AUSTRALIA
Sam Neill touts treatment
Actor Sam Neill said that he is cancer-free after five years of living with lymphoma, thanks to a genetic therapy that modified his immune system. The New Zealander, who starred in the 1993 film Jurassic Park, in a 2023 memoir said that he was “possibly dying” with stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Neill, 78, said in a weekend interview that he had lived with the blood cancer for about five years, but his chemotherapy treatment stopped working. “I was at a loss and it looked like I was on the way out, which wasn’t ideal, obviously,” he told Australia’s Channel Seven News. The actor was treated with CAR T-cell therapy, which uses a disabled virus to genetically reprogram human infection-fighting T-cells, enabling them to target specific cancers. “I’ve just had a scan just now, and there is no cancer in my body — that’s an extraordinary thing,” Neil said.
INDIA
Man takes body to bank
A man dug up his sister’s body and carried it to a bank branch on Monday to prove she was dead after being refused access to her account without a death certificate, the lender said on Tuesday. Jitu Munda, from a constitutionally recognized tribal community in the eastern state of Odisha, went to an Indian Overseas Bank branch to withdraw money from his deceased sister’s account. However, bank staff told him that “withdrawals by a third party are not permitted without proper authorization,” the lender said. Angered by being turned away because he did not have her death certificate, Munda returned to the branch carrying the “human remains” of his sister, who had been buried days earlier, the bank said. Television networks broadcast footage of Munda carrying what appeared to be a corpse partially wrapped in plastic, with skeletal legs visible and slung over his shoulder. “This created a highly distressing situation at the premises,” the bank said. The incident stemmed from a “lack of awareness” and the individual’s unwillingness to follow procedures, it said. “The claim will be settled on priority, once the death certificate is submitted,” it added.
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
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