■AUSTRALIA
Koalas in decline: research
Koalas have suffered a sharp population decline because of development, bushfires and global warming, and could vanish within decades, researchers said yesterday. The wild koala population was between 43,000 and 80,000, well under previous estimates of more than 100,000, with the animals facing possible extinction in about 30 years, the Australian Koala Foundation said. In one area of northern Queensland state that had 20,000 koalas a decade ago, a team of eight people did not find even one koala in four days of searching.
■AUSTRALIA
‘Sheikh’ waves flags
A self-styled sheikh accused of sending abusive letters to families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan wrapped himself in chains and waved Australian flags after a court appearance yesterday. Man Monis, also known as Sheikh Haron, then made the bizarre suggestion that popular children’s band The Wiggles should perform a peace concert for children whose parents were killed during the conflict. “I love Australia. I want safety for Australia,” he told journalists, while waving small Australian flags. “When the Australian government kills innocent Afghan civilians they might kill our civilians.” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described the hate-mail allegations as “sickening” when they came to light last month. “I ask Mr. Kevin Rudd ... did your stomach turn when you heard the news that the Australian army has killed innocent civilians?” Monis asked.
■FRENCH POLYNESIA
Former president detained
Former president Gaston Flosse, an ally of former French president Jacques Chirac, has been questioned and detained in a graft probe by authorities in Tahiti, the prosecutor in the case said. Gaston, 78, was accompanied to prison in a suburb of Papeete on Monday by dozens of party supporters and friends chanting slogans and denouncing France’s justice system. Hundreds of supporters earlier spent the afternoon outside the Palace of Justice where Gaston was questioned for two hours by Judge Philippe Stelmach before going before a court that placed him in detention. Flosse, a French senator, served four terms as head of the French Pacific territory.
■THAILAND
Airport moves statues
The main airport is to relocate 12 giant “demon statues” to boost the morale of staff who thought the figures brought bad luck, local media and officials said yesterday. The statues at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport will move from the arrivals area to the check-in zone at a cost of around 1.7 million baht (US$51,000), Airports of Thailand (AOT) president Serirat Prasutanond said. The English-language Bangkok Post newspaper reported that airport director Niran Thiranartsin said the decision had partly resulted from complaints from airport staff. “The shopkeepers are blaming the ‘demon statues’ for the problems they have faced at the airport,” the paper said. “The guardian spirit statues will be shifted from the inner zone of the passenger terminal to the check-in area to ‘improve morale.’”
■PHILIPPINES
Four abducted in Maluso
Al-Qaeda-linked militants abducted at least four factory workers yesterday, police said, a day after authorities found the severed head of a previous kidnap victim. Armed men in military-style uniforms seized the workers from the Hitech Wood Craft Corp in Maluso town on Basilan island before dawn, provincial police chief Abubakar Tulawie said.
■FRANCE
Hariri congratulated
President Nicolas Sarkozy congratulated Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Monday after he formed a national unity government following four months of negotiations with his Hezbollah-led rivals. In a letter published by the Elysee palace, Sarkozy said he welcomed “this excellent news” and said the new government “meets the aspirations of the Lebanese people.” Sarkozy also invited Hariri to come to Paris. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also vowed to give Hariri’s government full support.
■LIBYA
Migration curbs working
The government has slashed by 90 percent numbers of African migrants trying to reach Europe illegally by sea since striking a deal with Rome for joint patrols early this year, Interior Minister Salah Rajab al-Masmari said on Monday. “We are happy to say that we are able to fulfill our commitments to the Italian side by cutting illegal migration by around 90 percent and dismantling and arresting criminal gangs of people smugglers,” the state news agency Jana quoted Masmari as saying. Under the deal, illegal migrants caught by Italian authorities are sent to Libya before being sent back to their home countries.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Miliband declines EU role
The BBC says Foreign Minister David Miliband has ruled himself out of the race to become the EU’s foreign minister, the new post created by the Lisbon Treaty. The BBC says Miliband turned down the post in a conversation with former Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen on Sunday. Other British officials have consistently hinted that Miliband was not interested in the role. The Foreign Office did not immediately return a call seeking comment yesterday.
■CYPRUS
Memorial draws criticism
Greek Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias said on Monday he was upset that a British veterans group chose the divided island’s breakaway Turkish Cypriot north for a memorial to their fallen comrades. He said the privately funded monument to 371 servicemen killed during Greek Cypriot resistance to British colonial rule in the 1950s should not have been built on Cyprus at all. “They could very well have built memorials in Britain instead,” Christofias said. Many Greek Cypriots saw the memorial’s chosen location as a deliberate slight. Christofias also said he regretted British High Commissioner Peter Millett’s presence at the memorial’s unveiling on Sunday in the town of Kyrenia, and would raise the issue with British authorities. The British High Commission said Millett simply laid a wreath during the private ceremony.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Evolution coming to schools
The government is ready to put evolution on elementary school curriculums for the first time after years of lobbying by scientists. Schools Minister Diana Johnson has confirmed the plans will be included in a blueprint for a new curriculum. It follows a letter signed by scientists and science educators calling on the government to make the change after draft versions of the new curriculum failed to mention evolution explicitly. Among the signatories were the Oxford University evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, three Nobel laureates and Reverend Michael Reiss, the professor of science education at the Institute of Education in London. Pupils will start with simple concepts of change, adaptation and natural selection illustrated by the evolution of fish to amphibians to mammals, for example.
■UNITED STATES
Suspicious powder tested
Envelopes containing suspicious powder were sent to three foreign consulates in Manhattan on Monday, but initial tests suggested the mailings were a hoax, police officials said. A field test done on the powder sent to the Uzbekistan Consulate came back negative for anthrax or any other dangerous substance, a New York Police Department spokesman said. Envelopes containing a powder were also sent to the French and Austrian consulates. The potential threat prompted an emergency response from federal and local authorities, including hazardous material units that decontaminated employees of the consulates who handled the envelopes.
■UNITED STATES
Chestnut wins eating contest
Joey Chestnut maintained his dominance in the sport of competitive eating by setting a new world record and winning the first-ever Martorano’s Masters Meatball Eating Championship in Las Vegas. Chestnut on Sunday gobbled 50 meatballs, the 2.8kg a new world record. Pat “Deep Dish” Bertoletti finished in second place, just one meatball behind Chestnut.
■CANADA
Teen survives on ice floe
A teenager was rescued on Monday after being trapped on an ice floe in the Arctic Sea with a polar bear and her two cubs. The 17-year-old had been out hunting with his uncle when they became separated on Saturday and he was set adrift on a large chunk of ice. Also trapped on the floe were the three bears. The teen, who was armed with a rifle, had to shoot the mother bear in self-defense, officials said. He survived one day and one night on the ice before being picked up by a search helicopter, having drifted about 45km into the open sea.
■BRAZIL
Student wins skirt battle
A student expelled from university for wearing a mini-skirt was re-admitted on Monday. Pressure from the government to reinstate 20-year-old Geisy Arruda appeared to have paid off late on Monday, when the private Bandeirante University reversed its decision. Brazil’s education ministry earlier demanded the Sao Paulo state university explain its decision to bar Arruda from the rest of her tourism course. The minister for women’s rights, Nilcea Freire, also waded in on Sunday, criticizing the university for “this total intolerance and discrimination.” Geisy attacked her expulsion, saying it violated her constitutional rights. She also slammed hundreds of students who jeered and called her a “whore” on Oct. 22, when she turned up in her revealing pink outfit. That incident quickly escalated, leading to security guards being assigned to accompany Geisy on campus for her protection. The university expelled her last week, blaming her for disturbing classes by “a flagrant lack of respect for ethical principles, academic dignity and morality.”
■UNITED STATES
Amputations lead to recall
A baby stroller company recalled about a million strollers on Monday after reports that children had had their fingertips severed in a hinge, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said. Maclaren Strollers had received 15 reports of children placing their fingers in the hinge mechanism, resulting in 12 reports of fingertip amputation, the safety commission said. The risk occurs when a child’s finger is placed in the hinge mechanism of a stroller while it is being unfolded and locked into place. The locking motion can shear off tiny fingertips, the safety commission said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese