NICARAGUA
21 Hondurans pardoned
Managua has pardoned 21 Honduran prisoners and deported then, including a leader of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) criminal gang, who was detained immediately upon crossing the border, police said on Sunday. The government also plans to return prisoners to Costa Rica, it said on Saturday. A similar transfer on Oct. 18 involved 43 Honduran prisoners. Managua has not disclosed reasons for its action. Sunday’s transfer involved David Elias Campbell Licona, known as “El Viejo Dan,” who was a leader of MS-13. Campbell Licona had been wanted by Honduran authorities on money laundering and gang charges since 2016, and was captured in Nicaragua in June 2021.
PHILIPPINES
Japan troops pact eyed
Manila hopes to ink a reciprocal troops access deal with Japan at “the soonest possible time,” Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro said yesterday. The two nations have agreed to start negotiations on a Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) that would allow them to deploy their forces on each other’s soil. Once the agreement is sealed, Teodoro said it would have to be submitted to the Philippine senate and Japanese legislature for ratification. Negotiations for an RAA would strengthen military cooperation between the two nations amid rising maritime tensions in the region.
CHINA
He Lifeng named to key post
Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) has been appointed head of the office of the Central Financial Commission (CFC) — which is responsible for running the day to day affairs of the new regulator tasked with overseeing the financial sector. He was also appointed party chief of a separate Central Financial Work Commission, which has been set up to strengthen the ideological and political role of the party in the overall financial system. The appointments, which were announced in Financial News underscore how the Chinese Communist Party has taken direct control of supervising the financial sector.
RUSSIA
Solar flares light up Siberia
Swathes of Russia and Ukraine were yesterday bathed in some of the strongest scarlet and green “northern lights” in years due to solar flares, pictures posted on social media and Russian media showed. The aurora borealis bathed swathes of Siberia, the Urals, southern Russia and Ukraine in green, scarlet and purple overnight. Pictures posted on social media showed the night sky across Russia shining red and green. The New Scientist magazine said in September that the northern lights are expected to be stronger this year than for at least a decade due to a surge in activity in the sun.
AUSTRALIA
Car plows into pub, kills five
Five people, including two children, were killed and several injured at a popular tourist town after a car crashed into a crowd of patrons on the front lawn of a pub, authorities said yesterday. Four died at the scene of the accident on Sunday evening in Daylesford, Victoria state police said. A girl who was airlifted to a hospital died there later. The SUV mounted a kerb and then drove across a grassed area outside the Royal Daylesford hotel, Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said during a media briefing. The driver, a 66-year-old man, was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Police said they would interview him later yesterday when he is released from hospital.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
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