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.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
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