MEXICO
Official held over deaths
A judge on Saturday ordered Chihuahua State immigration director Salvador Gonzalez to stand trial on charges of homicide, injuries and failure to perform his duties, for last month’s deadly fire at a migrant detention center. The judge ordered Gonzalez to be held in prison pending trial. Judge Juan Jose Chavez said there was evidence that Gonzalez failed to do his duty to protect the migrants. Forty migrants died in the March 27 fire in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, after a migrant allegedly set fire to foam mattresses to protest a supposed transfer. “In the end, everything depends on the head” official, Chavez said. “Not complying with standards does have its results.”
UNITED STATES
Family sues cruise firm
A widow and her family are suing Celebrity Cruises for allegedly mishandling her husband’s body after he died while they were on a ship, saying it was left to decompose and they suffered extreme emotional trauma. After Marilyn Jones’ husband of 55 years, Robert Jones, died of a heart attack on Aug. 15 last year while onboard the Celebrity Equinox, his body was stored for nearly a week inside a walk-in cooler normally used for beverages, instead of a properly chilled morgue as she was promised, the federal lawsuit filed in Florida said. That left the body bloated and green, and the family was unable to have an open-coffin funeral, “which was a long standing family custom and was what his family had desired,” the lawsuit said. Marilyn Jones, her two daughters and three grandchildren are seeking US$1 million in damages.
FRANCE
Activists protest highway
Thousands of demonstrators on Saturday marched in southern France to protest plans to build a new highway they say would pollute, add to global warming and threaten biodiversity. The demonstration in Tarn against the proposed Autoroute A69 drew 8,200 people, organizers said, while local authorities said 4,500 people attended. They marched under intermittent rain along the route of the proposed highway, which would link the southern cities of Toulouse and Castres, carrying placards that said: “Less energy, fewer cars and less tarmac,” and other green messages. Europe Ecology Greens party lawmaker Julien Bayou said the planned highway was “anachronistic.” Greens lawmaker Sandrine Rousseau said the project dated back to the 1990s, when the thinking was that one could only travel by driving on highways. “There is really no need of another motorway,” she said. Others said the 53km highway would lead to a loss of farmland and endanger biodiversity.
MOROCCO
Customs police seize drugs
Police seized 5.4 tonnes of cannabis resin stashed in a truck headed for Spain, and 60kg of cocaine packed in frozen tuna, security officials said. Security and customs officers seized the cannabis resin in the northern port of Tangier “on board an international freight truck,” the General Directorate of National Security said on Saturday. The resin blocks were pressed into plates slotted into specially fitted cavities, including in the truck’s chassis. The 45-year-old Moroccan driver was arrested. In a separate operation, also in Tangier, nearly 60kg of cocaine was seized on Thursday inside a refrigerated container, police said. The cocaine was packed in tuna marked as coming from Ecuador and destined for Spain.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
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
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
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,
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