Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro attends a rally in Caracas, Venezuela. PHOTO: XINHUA
BUENOS AIRES (AFP) – Courts in Argentina and Venezuela issued warrants for the arrests of each other’s presidents on Monday amid a showdown between “anarcho-capitalist” leader Javier Milei and socialist strongman Nicolas Maduro.
Venezuela was first off the mark with its warrant for Argentina’s Milei over what it called the “theft” of a Venezuelan plane seized in Buenos Aires for alleged sanctions violations.
A court in Caracas also issued warrants for Argentina’s Security Minister Patricia Bullrich and Karina Milei, the president’s sister and presidential advisor.
In a tit-for-tat measure hours later, an Argentine court ordered the arrest of Venezuela’s Maduro and dozens of aides for crimes against humanity.
Significantly, the court also asked international police organization Interpol to issue a red notice for their capture, local media reported.
The federal court in Buenos Aires accused Venezuela’s leaders of organizing the kidnap and torture of Venezuelan citizens, the reports added.
The court invoked the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows countries to prosecute certain serious crimes regardless of where they took place.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello is among those sought.
Polar opposites
Venezuela has repeatedly locked horns with Argentina, where Milei, a vocal critic of Maduro-style socialism, took office last December.
Argentina was among dozens of countries not to recognize Maduro’s claim of reelection victory in a July 28 vote which the opposition said it can prove he stole.
Argentina – whose embassy in Caracas is sheltering Venezuelan opposition officials – was among seven Latin American countries with which Caracas severed ties after the election.
The arrest warrant issued by Venezuela for Milei relates to a cargo plane owned by Venezuelan company Emtrasur, which was seized after landing in Argentina in June 2022, before Milei took office.
An Argentine judge then granted a request for the United States to seize the plane on grounds that laws were broken when Iran sold it to Venezuela. Both countries are under US sanctions.
Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice on Monday accused Milei of aggravated robbery, unlawful detention and “unlawful interference with the operational safety of civil aviation”.
The arrest warrant was seen as largely symbolic, however, as it is unlikely Milei will set foot in Venezuela, which is the only country where the warrant applies.
Maduro’s regime has lashed out repeatedly over the past week at its critics, notably accusing the United States of plotting to overthrow late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez’s handpicked successor.
Seven bodies of teenagers were found drowned in Bekasi River, outside Jakarta, Indonesia. PHOTO: CNA
JAKARTA (CNA) – Residents of a housing complex near the Bekasi River, outside Jakarta, Indonesia were said to have been horrified on Sunday when they discovered seven bodies floating behind a mosque.
Police said they believe the victims, a group of teenagers, drowned while trying to evade arrest. Acting head of the Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) in Bekasi City Priadi Santoso confirmed that residents reported the discovery around 7am. The bodies were found in the murky waters, showing signs of swelling on their faces but no significant injuries.
“There are no major wounds, only bruises on their heads, likely due to swelling,” said a rescue officer from Bekasi, identified only as Fajar, in an interview with Kompas TV on Sunday. Local television channel TV One reported that resident Umi Suci was searching for her cat near the riverbank at about 5.30am. Instead of her pet, she came across five bodies scattered along the river, prompting her to alert her community, who contacted authorities for help.
A coordinated rescue operation involving the police, National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), and BPBD was launched to recover the bodies.
Two additional bodies were later found in the same river – one floating downstream and the other stranded on the riverbank approximately 20 metre (m) away.
Authorities noted that the seven victims were similarly dressed in black jackets, but it remains unclear if the jackets bore any specific insignias or affiliations. Head of Medical Services at the police hospital Herry Wijatmoko indicated that the bodies had likely been in the water for over 24 hours, as the cold water temperature slowed decomposition.
Local authorities reported that the Bekasi River’s depth varies, with some areas reaching up to 2m. However, the spots where the bodies were found were much shallower, measuring only about 10cm or ankle-deep.
Police initiated investigations to identify the victims. All seven bodies were transported to the Keramat Jati Police Hospital in East Jakarta, where autopsies are planned to determine the cause of death.
Seven bodies of teenagers were found drowned in Bekasi River, outside Jakarta, Indonesia. PHOTO: CNA
JAKARTA (XINHUA) – Six people were killed and four others injured in a vehicle collision on a highway in the Indonesian province of Central Java yesterday.
The accident took place in the province’s Pati region at around 2am local time, involving a passenger bus and two semi-trailer trucks, according to a preliminary report by Pati Traffic Police.
Chief of Pati Traffic Police Asfauri told local media that the bus was carrying 28 people when the accident occurred. Four passengers and the driver were killed. The other deceased was a truck driver.
The deceased and injured were taken to nearby hospitals, and the cause of the accident was being investigated, he said.
Deadly road accidents are common in the Southeast Asian country due to overloading, poor road conditions and reckless driving.
BARCELONA (AFP) – From combining treatments in unprecedented ways to deploying artificial intelligence (AI) for personalised medicine, a raft of new advances in the fight against cancer have been presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), which ends today.
Here are some of the big announcements made at the five-day conference held in the Spanish city of Barcelona, which brought together 30,000 specialist doctors and researchers from around the world.
Women who breastfeed after receiving treatment for breast cancer do not have a higher risk of their cancer returning or of getting new tumours, according to two international studies presented at the conference.
This was also true for women carrying a genetic mutation called BRCA, which significantly increases the chance of developing breast cancer, the research found. There had previously been concerns about pregnancy and breastfeeding after women had been diagnosed with breast cancer, because both can affect hormone levels.
“These results are key for women who wish to become pregnant and breastfeed their baby after breast cancer,” said researcher and doctor Fedro Alessandro Peccatori at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan.
PHOTO: FREEPIKPHOTO: FREEPIK
Immunotherapy, which stimulates the body’s immune system to fight tumours, has already been shown to be an effective weapon against lung cancer.
On Saturday, the results of a phase two trial revealed promising signs against metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, which is when the most common form of lung cancer spreads to other parts of the body. The trial tested a new combination of two different immunotherapies along with chemotherapy. “By aiming at a second target of the immune system and combining these treatments, it seems that we are improving response rates – that is, the number of patients who have their tumours shrink,” oncologist at France’s Curie Institute Nicolas Girard told AFP.
Another combination of immunotherapy and chemotherapy produced excellent results against a very rare form of pregnancy-related cancer which develops in the placenta. The cancer only occurs in around one out of every 10,000 pregnancies.
The combination of treatments led to 96 per cent of the cancer in patients being eradicated.
“This is an exceptional result,” said France-based oncologist Benoit You, who presented the research.
A huge AI algorithm trained on a database of more than a billion images of tumours from around 30,000 patients in the United States also showed promise for future cancer treatment, researchers said yesterday.
The model is capable of “detecting a certain number of molecular anomalies and mutations that the human eye is not always able to see,” research head at France’s Gustave Roussy cancer centre Fabrice Andre told AFP.
In the long term, the doctors hope this kind of AI will be able to help them offer personalised treatments for each patient.
One of the main messages to come out of the ESMO conference was that combining immunotherapy with radiation therapy before surgery improves the overall survival rates for a growing number of cancers, including for the breast, bladder and cervix.
But receiving these kinds of treatments ahead of surgery seems to also allow for the affected organs themselves to be saved, Andre said.
“Organ preservation is absolutely essential to have a quality of life that is as close as possible to normal,” he said.
Research presented yesterday showed encouraging results for preserving rectums in patients with cancer affecting this important part of the digestive tract. This only occurs after the treatments have caused the tumour to completely vanish.
“Until now the standard was surgery, but it seems we are entering a new era where surgery could be avoided,” said oncologist and researcher David Sebag-Montefiore at the United Kingdom’s University of Leeds.
There are hopes that this treatment combination could also have the potential to work for other cancers, such as those of the ear, nose and throat – or lungs.
File photo of the water reserves in Penang, Malaysia. PHOTO: THE STAR
ANN/THE STAR – Penang is preparing for its next dry season in January 2025 as September rainfall fails to fill its water reserves to safe levels.
Penang Water Supply Corporation (PBAPP) chief executive officer Datuk K Pathmanathan, in a statement, advised Penangites to use water wisely to help the state’s water reserves recover.
“After eight dry months in 2024, the effective capacities of the Air Itam and the Teluk Bahang dams are finally showing improvements with heavy rainfall in Penang since September 1,” he said.
“However, the reserves of these two dams must reach significantly higher levels before the next dry season, which is expected to begin in January 2025,” he added.
File photo of the water reserves in Penang, Malaysia. PHOTO: THE STAR
ABOVE & BELOW: A vendor offers hobby horses for sale at the German Hobby Horsing Championship in Frankfurt, Germany; and competitors briefed during the competition. PHOTO: AP
FRANKFURT (AP) – Germany’s first hobby horsing championship got underway in Frankfurt on Saturday, with hundreds of young riders competing in time jumping, style jumping and dressage on their wooden stick horses.
Roughly 300 riders – mostly youngsters, but there are about 20 adults enrolled – cantered around a gymnasium on Saturday and Sunday, watched by 1,500 spectators.
The competition was part of a growing wave of hobby horsing events internationally: the United States and Australia also held their first championships this year.
“Hobby horsing just gives me self-confidence and I just enjoy doing it with other people,” said 15-year-old competitor Max Gohde from Gifhorn, Germany, who has been practicing since 2020.
“And now there’s also this atmosphere here, where everyone is just happy for you. And I think that’s just really cool.”
The events stemmed from a grassroots movement in Finland, where riders trotted their hobby horses through Nordic forests more than 20 years ago.
The pastime has since exploded in popularity through social media during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Of course, when you see it like that, it looks funny at first. In fact, it really is a strenuous sport.
ABOVE & BELOW: A vendor offers hobby horses for sale at the German Hobby Horsing Championship in Frankfurt, Germany; and competitors briefed during the competition. PHOTO: APPHOTO: APABOVE & BELOW: Photos show the competition in progress. PHOTO: APPHOTO: APABOVE & BELOW: A participant during the competition; and a line-up of hobby horses. PHOTO: APPHOTO: AP
“It’s a mixture of athletics and gymnastics, and you need to be in good shape for it,” said managing director of public relations of the German Hobby Horsing Association Andreas Karasek.
He said there are currently about 5,000 active hobby horsers in Germany and 230 clubs.
Felicia Walter, 18, a hobby horsing fan from Wiesbaden, said she wants to take part in the championship next year.
“And it used to be that we were laughed at for it,” she said.
“But when you’re part of a larger group, I think it always works and especially now, when you see something like that, you get a feeling of togetherness.”
Britta Skott, who has been practicing for three years, thinks that the sport is “incredibly fun” and enables people to “live out their passion for horses without having to sit on real horses”.
Head of the Finnish Hobbyhorse Association Julia Mikkonen said hobby horsing combines Finnish handcrafting culture – some riders make and decorate their own sticks and stuffed horse heads – with gymnastics and sport.
In Germany, the national hobby horsing association was established a year ago with just 13 members. Now there are more than 5,000 active athletes and more than 200 clubs across the country.
“It was very important to us to set an example and make the sport more popular,” said president of the German Hobby Horsing Association Kay Schumann.
“With the championship, which will be held every year from now on, we offer a goal that motivates hobby horsers to improve their performance and compete against each other.”
While organisers want to promote empowerment and acceptance through a positive and inclusive experience for competitors, critics have pounced on the activity.
Many riders have faced bullying and misogynistic comments online. Other detractors said the pursuit is not a sport.
Mikkonen countered that just like in other sports, hobby horse riders need athleticism, strong core muscles and stamina to succeed.
Competitors in Germany this weekend will be judged on factors including precision, timing and elegance, according to the German Hobby Horsing Association’s website. Judges will award marks in the style and dressage contests, and the highest score wins.
For dressage, officials will be looking at the rider’s posture, skills and body positioning. Are they using elegant leg movements, with their toes touching the ground first? Are they using various speeds and gaits in their routine?
Style jumpers will also be judged on their posture, as well as jumping over the centre of the obstacles, sticking the landing and keeping a steady pace.
Schumann said children and young riders brought hobby horsing to Germany through social media. They swapped videos and images with each other, and built a community around the shared interest.
ABOVE & BELOW: Assistant United States Attorney Emily Johnson presents her argument for remand during a bail hearing for Sean “Diddy” Combs in federal court, in New York; and Combs sits at the defence table with one of his attorneys. PHOTO: AP
NEW YORK (AP) – As they unsuccessfully fought to keep Sean “Diddy” Combs out of jail after his sex trafficking arrest, the music mogul’s lawyers highlighted a litany of horrors at the Brooklyn federal lockup where he was headed: horrific conditions, rampant violence and multiple deaths.
Combs, 54, was sent to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn last Tuesday – a place that’s been described as “hell on earth” and an “ongoing tragedy” – after pleading not guilty in a case that accuses him of physically and sexually abusing women for more than a decade.
The facility, the only federal jail in New York City, has been plagued by problems since it opened in the 1990s. In recent years, its conditions have been so stark that some judges have refused to send people there. It has also been home to a number of high-profile inmates, including R Kelly, Ghislaine Maxwell and cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.
In a statement, the federal Bureau of Prisons said: “We also take seriously addressing the staffing and other challenges at MDC Brooklyn.” An agency team is working to fix problems, including by adding permanent correctional and medical staff, remedying more than 700 backlogged maintenance requests and answering judges’ concerns.
A judge last Wednesday denied a request by Combs’ lawyers to let him await trial under house arrest at his USD48 million mansion on an island in Miami Beach, Florida.
Here are some important things to know about the jail:
ABOVE & BELOW: Assistant United States Attorney Emily Johnson presents her argument for remand during a bail hearing for Sean “Diddy” Combs in federal court, in New York; and Combs sits at the defence table with one of his attorneys. PHOTO: APPHOTO: APFile photo shows Combs participating in a FOX Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, California. PHOTO: APMedia outlets set up cameras outside the main entrance of the Metropolitan Detention Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York. PHOTO: AP
WHAT IS THE METROPOLITAN DETENTION CENTER?
The Bureau of Prisons opened the facility, known as MDC Brooklyn, as a jail in the early 1990s.
It’s used mainly for post-arrest detention for people awaiting trial in federal courts in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Other inmates are there to serve short sentences following convictions.
The facility, in an industrial area on the Brooklyn waterfront, has about 1,200 detainees, down from more than 1,600 in January. It has outdoor recreation facilities, a medical unit with examination rooms and a dental suite. It has a separate wing for educational programmes and the jail’s library.
The Bureau of Prisons closed its crumbling Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan in 2021, leaving MDC Brooklyn as its only facility in the nation’s largest city.
WHAT ARE SOME PROBLEMS WITH MDC BROOKLYN?
Detainees have long complained about rampant violence, dreadful conditions, severe staffing shortages and the widespread smuggling of drugs and other contraband, some of it facilitated by employees. At the same time, they say they’ve been subject to frequent lockdowns and have been barred from leaving their cells for visits, calls, showers or exercise.
In June, Uriel Whyte, 37, was stabbed to death at the jail. A month later, Edwin Cordero, 36, died after he was hurt in a brawl. At least four people detained at the jail have died by suicide in the last three years.
Cordero’s lawyer, Andrew Dalack, told The New York Times his client was just the victim of “an overcrowded, understaffed and neglected federal jail that is hell on earth”.
At least six MDC Brooklyn staff members have been charged with crimes in the last five years. Some were accused of accepting bribes or providing contraband such as drugs, cigarettes, and cellphones, according to an Associated Press (AP) analysis of agency-related arrests.
MDC Brooklyn has also come under fire for its response to debilitating infrastructure breakdowns and the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, a week-long power failure sparked unrest among shivering inmates and drew concerns from federal watchdogs. In March 2020, the jail had the first federal inmate to test positive for COVID-19.
As of last November, according to court filings, MDC Brooklyn was operating at about 55 per cent of full staffing, which was taxing to employees and added to its security woes.
WHAT IS BEING DONE ABOUT THESE PROBLEMS?
Judges and advocates have taken notice, excoriating the Bureau of Prisons for “dangerous, barbaric conditions” and pressing the agency to make improvements. Some judges have moved away from sending defendants to MDC Brooklyn or have given reduced sentences because of the conditions there.
In January, United States (US) District Judge Furman took the rare step of allowing Gustavo Chavez, 70, to remain free on bail after his conviction for drug crimes rather than locking him up at the Brooklyn jail to await sentencing.
“Prosecutors no longer even put up a fight, let alone dispute that the state of affairs is unacceptable,” Furman wrote.
In August, US District Judge Gary Brown said he would vacate a 75-year-old defendant’s nine-month sentence for tax fraud and place him on home confinement if the Bureau of Prisons sent him to MDC Brooklyn.
In response, the Bureau of Prisons said it had “temporarily paused” sending any defendants convicted of crimes to the jail to serve their sentences. In a statement last Tuesday, the agency said 43 people were currently serving sentences in a minimum-security unit at the jail.
A flooded street in Chiang Mai’s Hang Dong district in Thailand. PHOTO: THE NATION
ANN/THE NATION – Flood-prone areas in Chiang Mai’s Hang Dong district in Thailand were inundated after Mae Tha Chang River broke its bank yesterday.
Stores and roads in Ban Chang Kham community were affected by the flood. Local officers closed flooded Hang Dong Road in the community sector, and asked motorists to use its bypass road.
Vendors on the roadside accelerated on setting up sandbag barriers to prevent flood damage on their products. Some store operators were facing floodwater of over 50 centimetres high.
Chiang Mai governor Nirat Pongsitthaworn has ordered district offices across the province to monitor the situation closely and undergo prevention measures, such as boosting drainage on roads and waterways.
District offices have also been instructed to check the readiness of their water pumps and sandbags, so they can be used to mitigate flood impact as soon as possible.
A flooded street in Chiang Mai’s Hang Dong district in Thailand. PHOTO: THE NATION
A mouse that crawled out of a passenger’s meal forced an SAS flight to make an unscheduled landing. PHOTO: NST
OSLO (AFP) – A mouse that crawled out of a passenger’s meal forced a Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) flight to make an unscheduled landing, the company said.
The incident occurred during Wednesday’s Oslo to Malaga flight, forcing the plane to land in Copenhagen.
Airlines usually strictly prohibit rodents on board because the animals can chew through electrical wiring, key to the operation of a plane.
“Believe it or not. A lady next to me… opened her food and a mouse jumped out,” wrote one passenger, Jarle Borrestad, on his Facebook page, along with a photo showing him smiling next to two other women, also smiling.
A spokesman for SAS, Oystein Schmidt, told AFP that “in line with our procedures, there was a change of aircraft” and the passengers were flown to Malaga on another flight.
“This is something that happens extremely rarely,” he said of the incident.
“We have established procedures for such situations, which also include a review with our suppliers to ensure this does not happen again,” he said.
A mouse that crawled out of a passenger’s meal forced an SAS flight to make an unscheduled landing. PHOTO: NST
The full harvest supermoon and partial lunar eclipse over Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the United States, PHOTO: UPI
UPI – It won’t be there forever, but Earth will have a second moon when a small asteroid begins to orbit the planet later this month, space researchers announced.
The celestial visitor, dubbed 2024 PT5, is from the Arjuna asteroid belt, according to researchers at the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, an asteroid monitoring system in South Africa.
The researchers say Earth’s gravity will pull the tiny moon toward our planet and act a lot like the regular moon, orbiting the Earth in a horseshoe shape, but for just shy of two months, from September 29 to November 25.
Other so-called non-Earth objects have entered the planet’s orbit in the past, but typically have not completed full revolutions, meaning they do not act like a typical “moon.”
When they do enter Earth’s orbit, like 2024 PT5, they are dubbed “mini-moons.” This particular asteroid is scheduled to return in 2055, scientists said.
While the event is getting a lot of attention, and is relatively rare, 2024 PT5 won’t be visible to the naked eye or even with a consumer-grade, backyard telescope, according to scientists. It will take professional equipment to lay eyes on the tiny moon, which is just not quite close enough to see with the unaided human eye.
“You may say that if a true satellite is like a customer buying goods inside a store, objects like 2024 PT5 are window shoppers,” said Universidad Complutense de Madrid professor and lead researcher Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, who has tracked the tony moon’s activity for several weeks.
2024 PT5 will reach a distance of about 2.8 million miles away from Earth and slow to a speed of about 2,200 mph, allowing it to be affected by Earth’s pull, even if only temporarily.
“Under these conditions, the geocentric energy of the object may grow negative, and the object may become a temporary moon of Earth,” Marcos explained. “This particular object will undergo this process starting next week and for about two months. It will not follow a full orbit around Earth.”
The full harvest supermoon and partial lunar eclipse over Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the United States, PHOTO: UPI
