MALAYSIA
Immigrants escape detention
More than 100 Rohingya immigrants on Thursday escaped from a detention center in Perak State after a protest, with one confirmed killed in a road accident, officials said yesterday. Immigration Department Director-General Ruslin Jusoh said in a statement that 131 detainees escaped from the center. Nearly 400 personnel were deployed to hunt them down, he said, without giving details on what sparked the breakout. District police chief Mohamad Naim Asnawi was quoted by national Bernama news agency as saying that the immigrants escaped from the men’s block after a riot broke out at the center.
GREECE
Police, students clash
Police and student protesters on Thursday clashed in the center of Athens after a demonstration against government plans to allow private universities. Demonstrators attacked police cordons, set fire to trash dumpsters and threw stones at riot police near parliament and later during clashes along the capital’s narrow streets. Police responded with tear gas and made several arrests. The government wants to legalize privately run universities in a bill that is due to go before parliament this month, arguing that the reform would prevent skilled people from leaving the country and make higher education more relevant to the labor market. But the plan has sparked several protests, including an ongoing campaign to occupy university buildings in protest, which has disrupted classes and forced some academic authorities to reschedule upcoming exams. In Thessaloniki, police joined by officers from a special-forces unit evicted protesters from the principal’s office of the city’s public university, which they had occupied.
HAITI
Killings increase, UN says
More than 2,300 people were killed, injured or kidnapped in the Caribbean nation from October to December last year, a nearly 10 percent increase compared with the previous quarter, the UN said in a report released on Thursday. The number of killings alone spiked to more than 1,600 during the period, with officials blaming the vacuum created by the death of a gang leader known as Andrice Isca for unleashing territorial fights in the Cite Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince that killed and injured nearly 270 people over about two weeks in late November. Isca has also been identified as Iskar Andrice and Iscar Andris. Authorities said fights occurred within a gang federation known as G-9 Family and Allies, which also targeted an opposition gang coalition called G-Pep. “In addition to the loss of human life, the humanitarian toll of the clashes was disastrous: Over 1,000 people were forced to abandon their homes and take refuge in nearby areas,” the report said.
UNITED STATES
Alaska sets cold record
Much of Alaska has plunged into a deep freeze, with Anchorage having some of its coldest temperatures in years. In the state capital, Juneau, snow blanketed streets and rooftops as part of a two-day storm that helped set a new January snowfall record of 2m for the city. Anchorage surpassed 2.5m of snow this week, the earliest date that the state’s largest city has ever hit that mark. For much of the last week, temperatures were minus-40°C or colder in Fairbanks, an inland city of about 32,000 that is a popular destination for seeing the northern lights. “That’s a pretty solid streak,” National Weather Service meteorologist Dustin Saltzman said, adding that it was the coldest outbreak in at least several years.
‘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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