PANAMA
Colombia slammed over gap
The national migration service on Friday said that Colombia has failed to help control the flow of mostly US-bound migrants passing through the Darien Gap. Agency director Samira Gozaine said that there had been a failure to reach any agreement with Colombia to promote legal transit of the up to 2,800 migrants a day who unlawfully cross their shared border. “For Panama, this is a crisis, but unfortunately with Colombia we have not been able to reach any kind of understanding,” Gozaine said in a statement.
BANGLADESH
Dengue outbreak spreads
Bangladesh is grappling with a record deadly outbreak of dengue fever, with hospitals struggling to make space for patients as the disease spreads rapidly. At least 293 people have died so far this year and nearly 61,500 have been infected, official figures showed, making this the deadliest year since the first recorded epidemic in 2000. Hospitals, especially in the capital, Dhaka, are struggling to find space for the large number of patients, health officials said.
SWITZERLAND
Dog makes epic journey
An escaped border terrier named Lucky made an epic 160km journey across Switzerland on the eve of the country’s national holiday, media reported on Friday. Her owners had left her in kennels in Bern canton, but the 14-year-old dog broke out on Monday evening. The following morning she turned up in Geneva, 160km away, RTS reported. “There was a hole in the fence” at the kennel, Lucky’s owner Jennifer Wagner told RTS. The dog was found near Lake Geneva, on the morning of Aug. 1, as fireworks began sounding for the national holiday. A Geneva resident spotted the animal on the side of a road and alerted authorities, RTS said. As Lucky was microchipped, police swiftly tracked down her owners, who were in Berlin frantically awaiting news of their pet. “I feel lucky that she is healthy, and did not die, and was not injured,” Wagner told RTS. “It was a big fright for us.” However, Wagner thinks her dog had a little help for her epic journey. She believes someone must have picked up the very friendly dog and driven her to Geneva. “I don’t think it is possible she ran [the whole way]. It is 160 kilometers,” she said. “That is impossible for a dog in such a short time.”
EL SALVADOR
Barbie coffins offered
A funeral home has taken Barbie mania to an extreme, offering pink coffins with Barbie linings. The pink metal coffins are on sale at the Alpha and Omega Funeral Home in the city of Ahuachapan, near the border with Guatemala. Owner Isaac Villegas on Friday said that he had already offered the option of pink coffins before the premiere last month of the Barbie movie, but the craze that swept Latin America convinced him to decorate the cloth linings of the coffins with pictures of the doll. The coffins are also decorated with little white stars. “I said: ‘We have to jump on this trend,’” Villegas said of the coffins, adding that “it has been a success.” He said the funeral home has already launched a promotional campaign around the Barbie boxes. Many people in El Salvador buy a pre-paid package for future burial. Villegas said that families had preferred traditional coffins in colors like black, white or gray, but a year ago, he sold his first pink coffin to family who wanted their relative buried in a happier-colored coffin. Now he has no plans to turn back. “We are going to have more pink coffins, because people are asking for it,” he said.
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
‘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,”
‘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
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
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