LIBYA
Qaddafi son captured
Muammar Qaddafi’s son and heir apparent Saif al-Islam has been detained in the southern desert, the interim justice minister said yesterday. He said Saif al-Islam and several bodyguards had been captured near the town of Obari by fighters based in the western mountain town of Zintan. “We have arrested Saif al-Islam Qaddafi in the Obari area,” Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagy said, adding that the 39-year-old, who is wanted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court at The Hague, was not injured. Another senior official in the executive of the National Transitional Council said that the interim government was still checking the details of what had happened. There was no word of the other official wanted by the court, former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi.
CHINA
Factory workers strike
More than 7,000 workers went on strike at a factory in the south of the country making New Balance, Adidas and Nike shoes, clashing with police in a protest over layoffs and wage cuts, a rights group said. Dozens of workers were injured on Thursday as police tried to break the strikers’ blockade of the main road in the factory town near Dongguan in Guangdong Province, China Labor Watch said in a statement on Friday. The strike at the Yucheng factory in Huangjiang Township took place in the wake of the layoff last month of 18 managers, a move seen by workers as a preparation for the factory’s relocation, the New York-based group said.
CHINA
Crashed plane identified
A plane that crashed and exploded in the east of the country on Nov. 7 has been identified as a navy aircraft in a local television broadcast of a memorial for the pilot, a rights group said yesterday. The identification confirms that this was the second crash of a military aircraft in just under a month, after a fighter jet plunged to the ground and exploded at an air show last month, killing one of the pilots. The memorial for the pilot who died in this month’s crash in Zhejiang Province was broadcast on Wednesday by the local television station in his birthplace, Zouping City, Shandong Province, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
HONG KONG
Women face murder charge
Police charged two foreign women, believed to be Indonesians, with murder yesterday after they allegedly dumped a newborn baby girl in a garbage bin and left her to die. Police identified the women only as expatriates aged 26 and 32. Reports in the local media earlier in the week quoted police as saying they were Indonesian domestic helpers. “The 26-year-old woman, who gave birth to a baby on Nov. 16, dumped the baby at a refuse collection point at Ying Lung Wai with the help of her 32-year-old female friend,” police said in a statement. It said a search was still under way at an landfill in the West New Territories, but there appeared to be no hope the baby would be found alive. The woman delivered the girl at a house and stuffed her into a plastic bag before throwing her in a trash bin, the South China Morning Post reported earlier, quoting police. It said the friend told a third person, who alerted the mother’s employer, who in turn called the police. The employer reportedly told police he was not aware the woman was pregnant.
BRAZIL
Gunmen kill Indian chief
Gunmen executed a chief of the Kaiowa-Guarani Indian tribe and disappeared with his body on Friday, according to Funai, the country’s federal indigenous affairs agency. Funai spokesman Bruno Perez said in an e-mailed statement that more than 40 “hooded and heavily armed” gunmen raided the Tekoha Guaiviry village in Mato Grosso do Sul State and fatally shot chief Nisio Gomes. He said the gunmen fled into the surrounding jungle in two pickup trucks with Gomes’ body. Funai spokeswoman Simone Fernandes said it appeared the gunmen were hired by local ranchers seeking to intimidate and expel the tribe from land that both sides claim as their own. The Roman Catholic Church-backed Indian Missionary Council said Gomes was shot several times in the head, chest, legs and arms. The council said witnesses reported that the gunmen also kidnapped two youths and one child.
LEBANON
Qaddafi verdict delayed
A court on Friday delayed its verdict in a case alleging late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s involvement in the 1978 disappearance of a Shiite cleric, pending confirmation of Qaddafi’s death. In 2008, Lebanon issued an arrest warrant for Qaddafi and six others over the disappearance of Musa Sadr, a spiritual guide of Lebanon’s Shiite community. Two influential figures from Qaddafi’s entourage, Ahmed Ramadan and Abdel Moneim al-Honi, have confirmed the Libyan leader had ordered Sadr killed.
GAZA STRIP
Hamas orders bank payouts
Hamas has ordered two banks to pay out more than US$100 million following a lower court ruling, bank bosses said on Friday. A board member from the Islamic Bank of Palestine said that following the decision, US$6 million of his bank’s assets had been preventively frozen and US$100 million from the Bank of Palestine. The court decision also barred board members from either bank from leaving the territory, the source said asking not to be named. The banker denounced the decision, saying: “All banks in Gaza pay no taxes in accordance with an exemption extended in 2007 by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.” An official from the Bank of Palestine said his bank had been ordered to pay US$99.7 million and 50 million shekels (US$14 million) in unpaid taxes and late penalties. In March, most banks closed in protest after funds were seized with the approval of Hamas, which has controlled the territory since chasing out security forces loyal to Abbas. Monetary authorities under the control of Abbas’ West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, block any bank from dealing with Hamas.
UNITED STATES
Focus on economy: poll
Nearly nine out of 10 Americans say their government should focus more on domestic economic woes than on its global engagement, a survey released on Friday showed. The Ipsos survey of 18,682 adults in 24 countries found the same was true in other countries, but to a slightly lesser extent, with only eight in 10 focused primarily on jobs and their pocketbooks. “Most people want their nations to be engaged citizens of the world, but economic pressures prompt people to look inward,” said Peter Van Praagh, head of the Halifax International Security Forum, which commissioned the poll. Economics aside, about 80 percent of respondents support their governments in their efforts to help countries struck by natural disasters, nurture democracy or punish countries behaving badly by levying sanctions.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
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