JAPAN
Radiation detected in nose
A worker at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant has had a high radiation level detected in his nose, authorities said. Radioactive materials might have touched the worker’s face on Monday as he took off a mask after finishing his work, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said on Thursday. The employee was not experiencing any adverse health effects and a full body scan showed no internal contamination, but a full analysis will be available next month, TEPCO said.
MEXICO
Animal kills tourist
A Belgian tourist was killed in an attack on Thursday by either a shark or a crocodile in Zihuatanejo, officials said. The civil defense office in Guerrero State said that a man and a woman were bitten in the legs by an unidentified animal. The man was reported dead at the scene, while the woman was taken to a hospital. State officials said the man was from Belgium and the woman’s nationality was not immediately clear. The office said it was studying the wounds to determine whether they were bitten by a shark or a crocodile, both of which inhabit the area.
HAITI
MSF reacts after attack
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Thursday said that it was suspending work at a medical center in the capital after an armed group pulled a critically ill patient from an ambulance and shot him dead in the street. The attack took place on Tuesday near Turgeau Emergency Center in Port-au-Prince, the group said in a news release. As two ambulances left the center with patients on board, including a man recently admitted in critical condition, about 10 armed individuals blocked the vehicles. After firing shots into the air and inspecting the interior of the ambulances, they ordered “the second ambulance to reverse while they pulled the patient from the first,” MSF said. The armed group then beat the man before shooting him several times at close range, then fleeing the scene. “MSF remains one of the last international organizations to provide healthcare in the Haitian capital and cannot accept that its ambulances are violently attacked and patients shot dead in the street,” MSF head of mission Benoit Vasseur said in the news release. The center would be closed “indefinitely” while MSF conducts a security analysis, the group said, adding that it would continue providing medical care at other sites in Port-au-Prince.
UNITED STATES
Baby survives tornado
A four-month-old boy has survived after a tornado in Tennessee sucked him up from his family’s mobile home, which was demolished in the storm. Sydney Moore told WSMV-TV that when the tornado hit their home in Clarksville on Saturday, it ripped off the roof and lifted the bassinet with her son inside. Her boyfriend, the child’s father, grabbed the bassinet, but was spun up into the twister as well, Moore said. “He was just holding on to the bassinet the whole time, and they went into circles, he said, and then they got thrown,” Moore said. At about the same time in another room, Moore jumped on top of their other son, who is one. She grabbed the child as the walls collapsed, she said. Moore and the one-year-old were left under the trailer, but she pushed them out, she said. They searched for the younger son for 10 minutes and found him lying in a fallen tree in the rain. “I was pretty sure he was dead and we weren’t going to find him, but he’s here and that’s by the grace of God,” Moore said. All the family members survived, but their home and belongings were a total loss.
‘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,”
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
‘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
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
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