RUSSIA
Putin names dog Buffy
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has named his new dog Buffy, but there was no sign in a walkabout for the cameras on Thursday that the Bulgarian shepherd had any vampire-slaying tricks. In fact, Putin said the dog “can’t do a thing,” although the caramel-and-white-patched puppy contradicted Putin by obediently sitting on his command. A five-year-old boy won a competition to find a name for the dog, which Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov gave to Putin in Sofia last month. “It’s soft, kind and sounds nice,” Putin told the boy, Dima.
RUSSIA
Drivers need ethics courses
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has ordered drivers of vehicles with blue flashing lights to undergo a course in “professional ethics” in an attempt to dampen public anger over their brutish behavior on the roads. According to new rules drawn up at Putin’s request, all drivers who use migalki — as the lights are known —- will have to pass the training, starting Jan. 1. Migalki are fixed on police, government and emergency vehicles, but are also available to a large number of middle-ranking state officials. Businessmen and criminals acquire licenses for the lights illegally, paying bribes of up to US$200,000 per year. There has been rising public anger over the impunity afforded to drivers with migalki, especially since a series of violent attacks on people who did not give way to vehicles with migalki.
UNITED STATES
‘Bomb factory’ blown up
A California house containing a “bomb factory” of explosives went up in smoke on Thursday in an operation controlled by fire services, who said it was the safest way to destroy it. Occasional blasts could be heard as flames leapt high into the air, after a bomb-arson team ignited the building in Escondido. Serbian George Djura Jakubec, 54, who lived in the house for about four years, pleaded not guilty on Monday to eight charges, including making and possessing destructive devices, as well as robbing three banks.
MEXICO
Alleged hitman a US citizen
US embassy spokesman Alexander Featherstone says US authorities have confirmed that an alleged 14-year-old drug gang killer and his 19-year-old sister are US citizens. A birth certificate shows the boy was born in San Diego. He is a suspect in at least four deaths. Featherstone says embassy officials have visited both in prison. They were arrested last week as they tried to board a plane to Tijuana at an airport near Cuernavaca.
NETHERLANDS
Fossil is hyena dung
Researchers say a curled-up brown fossil dredged up off the coast is an ancient piece of hyena dung, the first found in the North Sea dating back to the Late Pleistocene era, 12,000-100,000 years ago. Jelle Reumer, director of the Rotterdam Natural History museum called the prehistoric piece of poop “a beauty.” It was found during work to expand Rotterdam’s port and went on display on Thursday.
UNITED STATES
Dead Door pardoned
Rock and roll icon Jim Morrison was pardoned on Thursday by the Florida clemency board for exposing himself at a raucous concert in 1969, an act the late singer and many concertgoers denied ever took place. Florida Governor Charlie Crist and the board voted unanimously to pardon The Doors’ lead singer, who was appealing his conviction when he died in Paris in 1971 at age 27.
‘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