News Headlines - 12 April 2021

▽Montenegro calls for EU help over $1bn Chinese highway loan | Financial Times

Montenegro has asked the EU for assistance with paying off a $1bn Chinese loan for an incomplete highway project that has imperilled the finances of the small western Balkan nation.
The saga of the incomplete road project, which is being built by the China Road and Bridge Corporation, is part of a larger geopolitical battle for influence on the EU’s periphery. How Brussels responds to Podgorica’s request - and whether it will bail the country out of a project long deemed unviable - will help to shape the bloc’s relationship with the region.

▽Peru election heads for run-off, far-left candidate Pedro Castillo leads

Peruvian far-left candidate Pedro Castillo is set to win the Andean country’s first-round presidential election, though he will face a run-off vote in June with an electorate fragmented after a year of political and economic crisis.
The 51-year-old union leader and primary school teacher, a shock winner after a late surge in the polls, had 16.2% of the vote with half the ballots tallied on the official count here... That level of support falls well short of the majority needed to win outright, however, meaning Castillo will face the second place candidate in a head-to-head vote.
The official count showed liberal economist Hernando de Soto in second place with 13.6% and the far-right’s Rafael Lopez Aliaga in third place with 12.9%. Conservative Keiko Fujimori was in fourth place also with 12.9% but was gaining ground as votes were counted. The fast count predicted she would come second.

▽Will Cuba’s Communist Party Congress be a game-changer? | Miami Herald

For the first time in over five decades, a leader without the last name Castro is expected to take the helm of Cuba’s ruling party as officials try to usher through a generational leadership change amid a crushing economic crisis.
Raul Castro is expected to step down as the Communist Party’s first secretary general, considered the most powerful political position on the island, during the organization’s Eighth Congress, which is slated to begin Friday.
The transition comes at Cuba’s most trying moment in years. The island is in the throes of its worst economic contraction since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

▽Fukushima locals criticize government for tone-deaf tritium mascot

A mascot launched by the Japanese government to coincide with its decision to release treated water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean has become the target of criticism by local residents, with many saying it is out of sync with the harsh reality of the situation.
The Reconstruction Agency on Tuesday released a flyer and video on its website featuring the radioactive substance tritium as a cute character to dispel concerns about the government's decision, but they were removed Wednesday night following the criticism.

▽Why It's Time to Rethink the Olympics - The New York Times

The Japanese public has grown wise to the health risk. It is also aware of the estimates that show the cost for the Games has swollen to a record $15.4 billion, up $3 billion in the last year alone. Recent surveys show close to 80 percent of Japanese say the Games should be postponed again or canceled.
Then there are the Winter Games, scheduled for February 2022 in and around Beijing. Anticipation has mostly centered on whether they should be boycotted because China has been repeatedly accused of brutalizing its own people. China denies such claims, but the Biden administration, the Canadian parliament, United Nations officials and up to 180 human rights organizations have said China is engaged in genocide against ethnic Muslim minorities.