HAITI
Earthquake kills two
At least two people were killed in a magnitude 5.3 earthquake that shook southwestern Haiti early on Monday, officials said, with the tremor followed by several aftershocks. In Anse-a-Veau, a small coastal town 130km west of the capital, Port-au-Prince, a woman died when a wall collapsed. In Fonds-des-Negres, 20km further south, the second death was caused by a landslide. In Nippes district, near the epicenter of the quake, nearly 200 houses were destroyed and about 600 others damaged, the local civil protection directorate said.
UNITED STATES
Biden curses at reporter
President Joe Biden cursed at a Fox News reporter at a White House event on Monday after the journalist shouted a question about the effect of rising inflation on this year’s congressional elections. As journalists were ushered out of a meeting of Biden’s Competition Council, Peter Doocy, a White House correspondent for Fox News, asked if it was okay to ask about inflation and if it was a political liability. “That’s a great asset, more inflation,” Biden said over a din of reporters shouting questions, apparently not realizing his microphone was still on. “What a stupid son of a bitch.”
LITHUANIA
CIA ‘black site’ to sell
A steel barn outside Vilnius where CIA terror suspects were once held in solitary confinement, subjected to constant light and high-intensity noise, is to go on the market. The government’s real-estate fund on Monday said that it was preparing to sell the former “black site” for an as-yet unknown price. Part of Washington’s secret “extraordinary rendition” program — in which suspected Muslim militants were held in jails outside the US — the 10-room building served as a detention center in 2005 and 2006. “One could do whatever one wanted,” said Arvydas Anusauskas, who led a Lithuanian parliamentary investigation into the site in 2010. “What exactly was going on there, we did not determine.”
GREECE
Snow paralyzes Athens
A blanket of heavy snow covered Athens on Monday, from the Acropolis hill to the coast in the south, disrupting air traffic, bringing transport to a halt and leaving scores of drivers stranded overnight on a highway. Rescue crews struggled to free hundreds of drivers whose vehicles halted for hours on an Athens ring road as the storm, named Elpida, swept across the nation. Media showed footage of soldiers handing out food, water and blankets to some of the drivers as the temperature fell overnight.
BELARUS
Group claims hack
An opposition hacker group on Monday said that it had encrypted some of the state railway company’s computer systems to disrupt its operations after it helped transport Russian troops into Belarus. The self-styled Belarusian Cyber-Partisans, which has claimed responsibility for previous cyberattacks, wrote on Twitter that it had encrypted some of the railway service’s servers, databases and workstations. It said it would be ready to hand over encryption keys on condition that 50 political prisoners were released and the presence of Russian troops in Belarus was “prevented.” The group said it had deliberately not disrupted the railway’s automation and security systems. The claims could not immediately be verified, but the national railway service said that electronic tickets were unavailable for what it described as “technical reasons,” the Belta state news agency reported.
INDONESIA
Club fire, clash kill 18
At least 18 people were killed during clashes between two groups at a club in the town of Sorong in West Papua province, police said yesterday, with most dying after the nightspot caught fire in the violence. “The clash broke out last night [Monday] at 11pm. It was a prolonged conflict from a clash on Saturday,” Sorong Police Chief Ary Nyoto Setiawan said in a statement. One victim was stabbed and 17 more died in the blaze at the Double O nightclub, officials said. “We found 17 bodies in the Double O; they were all found on the second floor. We have evacuated the bodies to Selebe Solu Hospital,” Sorong Police Health Division head Edward Panjaitan said.
MALAWI
Cabinet dissolved for graft
President Lazarus Chakwera has dissolved the country’s entire Cabinet on charges of corruption against three serving ministers, he said in an address to the nation late on Monday. Chakwera said he made the decision to allow the ministers, as well as other public officers accused of corruption, to account for their charges. The decision come close on the heels of the arrest of three former officials of the Democratic Progressive Party, which included the former finance minister and central bank governor, touted to be Chakwera’s main challengers in an election in 2025.
TURKEY
US decries reporter’s arrest
The US is “disappointed” by the arrest and detention of journalist Sedef Kabas by the country’s authorities, US Department of State spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday. A court on Saturday ordered Kabas, a well-known journalist, to be jailed pending trial on a charge of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which carries a sentence of one to four years. “We believe freedom of expression strengthens democracy and it needs to be protected, even when it involves speech some may find controversial or some may find uncomfortable,” Price told a news briefing in Washington.
SUDAN
Troops kill three protesters
Three demonstrators were on Monday killed when security forces fired live rounds and tear gas during protests against military rule, medics said. “Our people are protesting peacefully and using all forms of nonviolent resistance toward a free, democratic and just country, only to be confronted by the military with the worst crimes,” a doctors’ group said. Two protesters were killed in a protest in the capital, Khartoum, one shot in the chest and the other in the head, the group said.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Net zero outstrips estimates
The extra amount that the world must spend each year to create an economy with net zero emissions is equivalent to half of all of the profits generated by companies globally, consultancy group McKinsey estimated in a report. McKinsey said its calculation was much higher than most other estimates by economists, but added that the long-term costs of not doing enough to tackle climate change would be greater. The main finding was that it would require spending about US$275 trillion, or US$9.2 trillion per year, on physical assets for energy and land-use systems — an annual increase of US$3.5 trillion over current spending. “The increase is approximately equivalent, in 2020, to half of global corporate profits, one-quarter of total tax revenue and 7 percent of household spending,” it calculated.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
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