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.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
COMMUNITY CONFLICT: Concerns about disease spread from corpses has run up against friends and families’ desire to bury their dead as infection spreads in the area Angry residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) attacked and burned a tent that was part of a health center where people are being treated for the virus, the staff there said Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week. No one was hurt in the attack, according to reports but as patients ran out to escape the fire, 18 people with suspected Ebola infections fled the facility and are unaccounted for, a hospital director said. Angry residents arrived at the clinic in the
Forecasters in Europe yesterday warned of exceptional heat as record temperatures driven by a “heat dome” push temperatures well above seasonal norms across the continent. The surge follows a record-breaking Monday, with France logging its hottest day in the month of May on record, its weather agency said, and the UK also posting unprecedented highs. A so-called “heat dome” of warm air from northern Africa trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe is behind the high temperatures not usually seen until high summer. Restrictions on outdoor work were imposed in parts of Italy, beaches in southwest France filled earlier than usual and
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