JAPAN
Death penalty defended
Minister of Justice Hideki Makihara said abolishing the death penalty would be “inappropriate,” despite the recent acquittal of the world’s longest-serving death-row prisoner. The policy — always carried out by hanging — “would be inappropriate to abolish,” as “heinous crimes continue to occur,” Makihara told reporters on Wednesday after being nominated by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba the previous day. He pledged to be “cautious and extremely sincere” when making the decision to sentence someone to death, Nippon Television reported.
SINGAPORE
Ex-minister sentenced
Former minister of transportation S. Iswaran was yesterday sentenced to 12 months in prison for obstruction of justice and accepting illegal gifts. Iswaran was charged this year with 35 counts mostly related to graft. His sentence was more severe than the six-to-seven months requested by the prosecution, which High Court Justice Vincent Hoong said would have been “manifestly inadequate” given the impact of the case on public trust. “Trust and confidence in public institutions are the bedrock of effective governance, which can all too easily be undermined by the appearance that an individual public servant has fallen below the standards of integrity and accountability,” Hoong said as he delivered the sentence.
UNITED KINGDOM
Johnson interview canceled
The BBC canceled an interview with former prime minister Boris Johnson after Laura Kuenssberg, one of its presenters, sent him the notes prepared for her questions. Kuenssberg, the host of the BBC’s Sunday morning news program, said she sent Johnson the notes “in a message meant for my team” and this meant the interview had to be canceled. “It’s very frustrating, and there’s no point pretending it’s anything other than embarrassing and disappointing, as there are plenty of important questions to be asked, but red faces aside, honesty is the best policy,” Kuenssberg wrote on X.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Deportation plans unveiled
The government on Wednesday unveiled a plan to start expelling 10,000 undocumented Haitians a week as part of a crackdown on migration from its neighbor. “This operation aims to reduce the excessive migrant populations detected in Dominican communities,” presidential spokesman Homero Figueroa said, adding the expulsions would start “immediately” and be done “according to strict protocols that ensure respect for human rights.”
MEXICO
Migrants killed in shooting
Six international migrants are dead after soldiers opened fire on a truck carrying a group near the border with Guatemala, the Department of Defense said on Wednesday. The soldiers claimed they heard shots as the trucks and two other vehicles approached their position late on Tuesday in Chiapas state, near the town of Huixtla, the department said in a statement. Two soldiers opened fire on the truck, which was carrying migrants from Egypt, Nepal, Cuba, India, Pakistan and at least one other country, it said. Soldiers then approached the truck and found four of the migrants dead and 12 wounded, it said, adding that two of the wounded later died of their injuries. The department did not say whether the migrants died as a result of army fire, or whether any weapons were found in the truck.
‘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,”
‘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
‘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
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
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