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Nov 22, 2024 - World

The number of U.S.-bound migrants passing through the Darien jungle has fallen by 39 percent so far this year, with a total of 294,000 attempting the dangerous journey since January, Panama's president said Thursday.In the same period last year, the number was 482,000 people crossing the jungle that separates Colombia and Panama, according to official data."There has been a 39 percent decrease in the flow of migrants," president Jose Raul Mulino told reporters in Panama City.The so-called Darien Gap is a key corridor for migrants traveling overland from South America through Central America and Mexico to the United States.Despite the dangers, including wild animals, treacherous terrain and attacks by criminal gangs, more than half a million undocumented migrants -- mostly Venezuelans -- crossed the inhospitable jungle last year.Transit countries such as Panama and Mexico have come under increased pressure from Washington to tackle the highly contentious migration issue.Panama has closed several routes in the Darien region, and has recently begun deporting migrants on flights funded by Washington.Mulino said the decrease was partly due to "heavy rains that made it impossible to navigate the rivers."But he said the migrant flow will not stop as long as the political and economic crisis continues in Venezuela.Millions have fled the country since President Nicolas Maduro came to power over a decade ago, with elections this year bringing further turmoil after he and the opposition candidate both claimed victory.Hundreds of migrants set out from the Mexican city of Tapachula on foot Wednesday, hoping to arrive at the US border before President-elect Donald Trump -- who has vowed massive deportations -- takes office in January.Trump, who won an election in which illegal migration was once again a top issue, has vowed to declare a national emergency on border security and use the US military to carry out a mass deportation of undocumented migrants, a population estimated to be over 11 million.

Nov 22, 2024 - World

Uruguayans go to the polls Sunday with the leftist alliance of celebrated ex-president Jose Mujica hoping to reclaim the country's top job five years after a right-wing victory based on concerns over crime and taxes.Former history teacher Yamandu Orsi of the leftist Frente Amplio (Broad Front) will go head-to-head with ex-veterinarian Alvaro Delgado of the National Party, a member of outgoing President Luis Lacalle Pou's center-right Republican Coalition.Orsi, 57, is seen as the understudy of 89-year-old "Pepe" Mujica, a former leftist guerrilla lionized as "the world's poorest president" during his 2010-2015 rule because of his modest lifestyle.Orsi had garnered 43.9 percent of the October 27 first-round vote -- short of the 50-percent cutoff to avoid a runoff but ahead of the 26.7 percent of ballots cast for Delgado, 55.The pair came out tops from a crowded field of 11 candidates seeking to replace Lacalle Pou, who has a high approval rating but is barred constitutionally from seeking a second consecutive term.Polls point to a tight race Sunday, with Orsi only marginally ahead in stated voter intention in South America's second-smallest country.Other parties within the Republican Coalition have since thrown their support behind Delgado, boosting his numbers."Conditions are in place for us to take charge... to make the changes the country needs," Orsi told a closing campaign rally Wednesday.Delgado, for his part, told supporters Uruguay was better off today thanks to the Republican Coalition in charge, adding: "I am prepared" to lead.- Liberal mold-breaker -A victory for Orsi would see Uruguay swing left again after five years of conservative rule in the country of 3.4 million inhabitants.The Frente Amplio coalition broke a decades-long conservative stranglehold with an election victory in 2005, and held the presidency for three straight terms.It was voted out in 2020 on the back of concerns about rising crime blamed on high taxes and a surge in cocaine trafficking through the port of Montevideo.Polling numbers show perceived insecurity remains Uruguayans' top concern five years later.The first round of voting was accompanied by a referendum in which Uruguayans were asked whether police should be allowed to carry out nighttime raids on homes as part of the fight against drug trafficking. The initiative failed.Voting is compulsory in Uruguay, one of Latin America's most stable democracies which boasts comparatively high per-capita income and low poverty levels.During the heyday of leftist rule, Uruguay legalized abortion and same-sex marriage, became the first Latin American country to ban smoking in public places and the world's first nation, in 2013, to allow recreational cannabis use.

Nov 22, 2024 - World

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Pyongyang's past diplomacy with Washington only confirmed its "unchanging" hostility towards his country, state media said Friday, months ahead of Donald Trump's return to the White House.While in office, former US president Trump met with Kim three times, but Washington failed to make much progress on efforts to denuclearise North Korea.Since Kim's second summit with Trump collapsed in Hanoi in 2019, the North has abandoned diplomacy, doubling down on weapons development and rejecting US offers of talks.Speaking on Thursday at a defense exhibition showcasing some of North Korea's most powerful weapons systems, Kim did not mention Trump by name but the most recent high-level talks with the United States were under his administration."We have already gone as far as we can go with the United States as negotiators, and what we became certain of is not the willingness of a great power to coexist," Kim said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).Instead, Pyongyang learned of Washington's "thorough stance of power and an unchanging, invasive, and hostile policy toward North Korea", Kim added.Images released by KCNA showed what appeared to be its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), hypersonic missiles, multiple rocket launchers and drones displayed at the exhibition.The event featured Pyongyang's "latest products of the national defense scientific and technological group of the DPRK with the strategic and tactical weapons, which have been updated and developed once again," KCNA said, referring to the country by its official acronym.Never before has the Korean peninsula faced a situation "that could lead to the most destructive nuclear war", Kim also said in his speech.In recent months, North Korea has built closer military ties with Moscow, with the United States and South Korea saying Pyongyang has sent thousands of soldiers to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.-- Leaders 'in love' --A few months after Kim and Trump's first landmark summit in Singapore in June 2018, the then-US president famously told a rally that he and the authoritarian leader had fallen "in love".A book in 2020 revealed that Kim deployed flattery and florid prose, and addressed Trump as "Your Excellency", in the letters that forged his diplomatic courtship of the former president.But their second summit in 2019 fell apart over sanctions relief and what Pyongyang would be willing to give up in return.In July this year, Trump said of Kim: "I think he misses me" and it's "nice to get along with somebody that has a lot of nuclear weapons".In a commentary released that month, North Korea said while it was true Trump tried to reflect the "special personal relations" between the heads of states, he "did not bring about any substantial positive change"."Even if any administration takes office in the US, the political climate, which is confused by the infighting of the two parties, does not change and, accordingly, we do not care about this," it added.

Nov 22, 2024 - World

A second young Australian tourist died in a Thai hospital on Friday, bringing the death toll related to suspected methanol poisoning during a night out in a Laos backpacker hotspot to six.Two Danish citizens, an American and a Briton have also died after what media described as a night out in adventure town Vang Vieng.The group of about a dozen tourists became ill after going out on November 12, according to British and Australian media."All Australians will be heartbroken by the tragic passing of Holly Bowles," Australia foreign minister Penny Wong said in a statement."Just yesterday, Holly lost her best friend, Bianca Jones.""I know tonight all Australians will be holding both families in our hearts," the foreign minister added.Australian officials are now pressing Laotian authorities for a full and transparent investigation into what happened.At the Bangkok hospital where Bowles had reportedly received treatment, staff said they could not confirm she had been a patient there.AFP has contacted Australia's embassy in Bangkok for comment.- Backpacker trail -Vang Vieng has been a fixture on the Southeast Asia backpacker trail since Laos' secretive communist rulers opened the country to tourism decades ago.The town was once synonymous with backpackers behaving badly at jungle parties and has since re-branded as an eco-tourism destination."I heard the news but everything is normal here," Michael, a Vietnamese manager at Vangvieng Rock Backpacker Rooftop Hostel told AFP, asking to use only one name."The high season is about to start so we are welcoming more tourists every day.""There are still many tourists in town, and they go partying," a receptionist at Vang Vieng Chill House Hostel told AFP.Bowles and Jones, both aged 19 from Melbourne, became unwell while staying at Vang Vieng's Nana Backpackers Hostel last week, Australian media reported.The women drank at the hostel's bar before they went out for the evening, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.They failed to check out on November 13, when hostel staff rushed the pair to the hospital.The Vietnamese manager of the Nana Backpackers Hostel has been detained for questioning, the Laos tourist police told AFP.No charges have been made, however.The Laos tourist police could not be reached for comment on Friday.Alcohol tainted with methanol is suspected to be the cause of death.Methanol is a toxic alcohol used in industrial and household products like antifreeze, photocopier fluids, de-icers, paint thinner, varnish and windshield wiper fluid.Methanol can be added to liquor to increase its potency, but can cause blindness, liver damage and death.On their travel advice websites for Laos, UK and Australian authorities warn their citizens to beware of methanol poisoning while consuming alcohol in Laos.In neighboring Thailand, at least six people died and more than 20 were hospitalized after drinking methanol-laced bootleg alcohol in August.

Nov 21, 2024 - World

Violence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa follows killing of dozens of people in clashes between Sunnis and minority ShiasAt least 42 people have been killed and 20 wounded after gunmen opened fire on vehicles carrying Shia Muslims in Pakistan’s restive north-west, in one of the region’s deadliest such attacks in recent years, police said.The attack happened in Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where sectarian clashes between majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shias have killed dozens of people in recent months. Continue reading...