NEW ZEALAND
Luxon backs Chinese cash
National Party leader Christopher Luxon yesterday said that he would “absolutely” accept money from China to fund new roads if his party wins October’s general election. Asked if he would turn to Beijing to fund a massive road infrastructure project worth NZ$24 billion (US$14.6 billion), Luxon told public broadcaster TVNZ: “Yeah, absolutely.” He added: “New Zealand is a country the same size [area] as Great Britain and Japan [separately], we have 5 million people in it,” he said. “A strong and resilient roading network will be absolutely critical to our future.” Asked if China would want something in return, such as being able to send its own workers to build the projects, Luxon replied: “That’s not going to happen,” and added: “That’s quite a xenophobic response and a pretty simplistic response.”
COLOMBIA
President’s son confesses
Nicolas Petro, son of President Gustavo Petro, on Thursday told prosecutors that money from a drug cartel filtered into the campaign of his father last year, a confession aimed at mitigating his own exposure to money-laundering charges. Nicolas Petro “received large sums of money from Mr Samuel Santander Lopesierra, known as The Marlboro Man,” prosecutor Mario Burgos said during a hearing. “Some of the money was used by Mr Nicolas Fernando Petro himself ... and the other part went into the 2022 presidential campaign,” Burgos said. Nicolas Petro was arrested on Saturday and denied the charges in a hearing on Wednesday, but changed his tune a day later when he announced his aim “to initiate a process of collaboration.” He said: “I will refer to new facts and situations that will help justice.” Local media reports said the younger Petro learned of new evidence held by prosecutors, and that Burgos offered to reduce his potential time in prison by half if he collaborated.
DENMARK
Border controls tightened
Police are tightening border controls following recent burnings of the Koran that have affected the security situation, the Ministry of Justice said on Thursday, following a similar decision by Sweden earlier in the week. Protesters in the two nations have burned and damaged in other ways several copies of the Koran in the past few months. “Authorities have today concluded that it is necessary at this time to increase the focus on who is entering Denmark, in order to respond to the specific and current threats,” the ministry said in a statement. Tighter border controls would initially be in place until Thursday next week, it said. “The recent Koran burnings have, as the security police have said, affected the current security situation,” Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard said in the statement.
THAILAND
Crash kills eight
Eight people were killed when a freight train struck a pickup truck crossing the tracks in an eastern province yesterday, authorities said. The crash at 2:20am also injured four people in the Muang District of Chachoengsao Province, State Railway of Thailand said. The 54-year-old driver, Wichai Yulek, told authorities he saw the approaching train and heard a warning horn. He slowed, but passengers in the vehicle urged him to keep going. When he realized the truck was headed for a collision, he could not stop in time, the railway agency said. The deceased include an 18 year old, two people in their 20s and five people over 55, while the injured victims included four men in their 20s, the railway said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
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