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.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
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