PHILIPPINES
Kidnapping suspect arrested
A second suspect in the kidnapping of an American man, who police say was likely killed by his captors, has been arrested, police said yesterday. Elliot Eastman was snatched from his home on Mindanao island on Oct. 17 last year. Police said his kidnappers shot him dead that day when he tried to escape. Jakaria Jamani, a resident of Sibuco, was arrested at sea on Tuesday and was being held without bail while awaiting trial for the kidnapping, police said in a statement. The statement described him as the “mastermind/planner” of the abduction.
Photo: EPA-EFE
VIETNAM
Court critic’s trial begins
Tran Dinh Trien, former deputy head of the Hanoi Bar Association and a former lawyer, yesterday went on trial over Facebook posts in which he criticized court officials. Charged with “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon state interests,” the 65-year-old faces up to seven years in jail if found guilty by the court in Hanoi. Prosecutors accused him of posting Facebook articles “without verified evidence ... undermining the prestige of the court,” Tuoi Tre newspaper said. The Facebook posts over which he is charged were uploaded in April and May last year. In them, he criticized the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who he said prevented defendants’ family members from attending trials, and journalists and lawyers from recording video during open trials, Human Rights Watch said.
Photo: AFP
INDIA
Six killed in stampede
At least six people were crushed to death on Wednesday at a Hindu religious gathering, with several more injured, officials said yesterday. A huge crowd had gathered to collect entrance tokens to visit the Sri Venkateswara Swamy Temple in Andhra Pradesh when the stampede broke out. “The unfortunate incident ... has claimed the lives of six devotees. I pray to god to give peace to the departed souls,” said Prem Kumar Jain, spokesman of the state’s ruling Telugu Desam Party.
MEXICO
Sheinbaum mocks Trump
President Claudia Sheinbaum responded sarcastically on Wednesday to US president-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” Standing before a global map at a news conference, Sheinbaum proposed dryly that North America should be renamed “America Mexicana,” or “Mexican America,” because a document from 1814 that preceded the constitution referred to it that way. “That sounds nice, no?” she added with a sarcastic tone. She also said the Gulf of Mexico had been named that way since 1607.
UNITED STATES
Greenland’s value backed
Greenland is important for national security, Representative Mike Waltz told Fox News on Wednesday, following comments by president-elect Donald Trump suggesting that Washington should take control of the island. Waltz, who was tapped to be Trump’s national security adviser, was asked about Trump wanting control over the arctic island. “You have Russia that is trying to become king of the arctic, with 60-plus icebreakers, some of them nuclear powered,” he said. “We have two and one just caught on fire.” Waltz added: “This is about critical minerals. This is about natural resources. This is about, as the polar ice caps pull back, the Chinese are now cranking out icebreakers and pushing up there as well. So it’s oil and gas. It’s our national security.”
‘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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