COLOMBIA
Narco-sub captured
The navy on Monday said it had intercepted a narco-submarine off the nation’s Pacific Coast on Saturday morning, as drug traffickers produce record amounts of cocaine destined for Europe and the US. The 15m-long homemande submersible was carrying almost 800kg of cocaine in small packages the size of bricks, navy spokesman Captain Wilmer Roa said. The packets were stamped with images of scorpions and Mexican flags. “In reality, this was a small” seizure, Roa said. “We’ve caught submarines with almost 3,500 kilos” of the drug. Last year, the navy captured 10 narco-subs, Roa said that last year Colombia’s navy captured 10 narco-submarines.
AUSTRALIA
Morrison quits politics
Former prime minister Scott Morrison yesterday said he was leaving politics to pursue a business career, calling time on a contentious career. The veteran politician announced he was stepping down as representative for a Sydney suburb next month, after 16 years in parliament. Morrison said he would “take on new challenges in the global corporate sector.” The conservative leader led Australia during the devastating 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic, when he shut the nation’s borders to the rest of the world. An avid supporter of the fossil fuel industry, Morrison once brought a lump of coal into parliament to show that lawmakers had nothing to fear from the black combustible rock. He repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that arson was a bigger cause of wildfires than climate change.
PHILIPPINES
No Duterte probe: Marcos
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday said his country would not help the International Criminal Court (ICC) in investigating his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. “Let me say this for the 100th time, I do not recognize the jurisdiction of ICC in the Philippines. I consider it as a threat to our sovereignty,” Marcos told reporters. “Therefore, the Philippine government will not lift a finger to help any investigation that the ICC conducts.” Marcos’ remarks come days after former senator Antonio Trillanes, who in 2017 filed a supplemental complaint against Duterte in the ICC, told local media that investigators of The Hague-based tribunal visited the Philippines in December to gather evidence. Trillanes said an arrest warrant against Duterte might be issued within the first half of the year, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported. Marcos said the government is “making sure” that the court investigators “do not come into contact with any agency of government.”
PAKISTAN
Dad kills son over flag
A father killed his son after the pair disagreed about which political party flag to display in the lead-up to the general election on Feb. 8, police said. The argument broke out when the son, who recently returned from working in Qatar, hoisted the flag of former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party at the family home on the outskirts of Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. “The father prohibited his son from hoisting the PTI flag at home, but the son refused to take it down and abandon PTI,” district police official Naseer Farid said. “The argument escalated, and in a fit of anger, the father fired a pistol at his 31-year-old son, before fleeing the house.” The son died on the way to the hospital. Police are searching for the father, who was affiliated with the nationalist Awami National Party and had previously displayed their flag.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
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