AUSTRALIA
Floods bring croc warning
Flooding in the north has prompted a warning about crocodiles, with several of the reptiles spotted in swollen waterways, an official said yesterday. The flood threat near Ingham, Queensland, is easing, but acting mayor of Hinchinbrook Shire Council Andrew Lancini said several residents had sighted the saltwater predators. “There’s usually reports of crocodiles [during floods],” he said. “You would be surprised if we didn’t.” Torrential rains have inundated much of the state after Tropical Cyclone Tasha crossed the coast early on Saturday, and south of Ingham many towns are cut off by floodwaters. The town of Chinchilla in the state’s south was suffering what could be its worst deluge in decades after more than 100mm of rain fell overnight, forcing the evacuation of several homes.
JAPAN
School apologizes
Otemon Gakuin University yesterday apologized to the family of an Indian student who committed suicide in 2007, after leaving a note saying he would kill himself because of bullying at school. “I would like to express my heartfelt apology to the bereaved family members,” dean Masayuki Ochiai told a press conference. The 20-year-old man jumped from a building at the Osaka Prefecture school three years ago, leaving a note saying: “The bullying I keep getting at school ... Cannot take it any more.” He had grown up in Japan and held Japanese citizenship. Compounding the tragedy, his father, depressed about his son’s suicide, later jumped to his death from the same building. Local media said the student had been forced to take his trousers down in front of others and that he had been nicknamed “bin Laden.”
RUSSIA
Chinese killed in blast
Five people, all believed to be Chinese, have been killed in an explosion at an oil refinery in Siberia, the ITAR-TASS and RIA-Novosti news agencies said yesterday. The explosion occured on Sunday night at a refinery in the village of Dauriya in the Zabaikalsky region. The reports said that 18 people were present in the refinery at the time of the blast, all of them believed to be Chinese.
PHILIPPINES
Bomb suspect identified
President Benigno Aquino said yesterday that investigators had identified a suspect and a possible “terror plot” in the Christmas day bombing of a southern church Although the attack on Jolo only wounded six people, Aquino said that the fact that it took place during a Christmas Mass, in a church within a police camp, had made the situation more urgent. “The modus operandi ... is similar to various other incidents and an [intelligence] report of a new terror campaign especially in that part of the country,” Aquino said. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
INDIA
Conviction protested
Activists in the US and in India have joined Amnesty International to strongly criticize the life sentence given to Binayak Sen, a pediatrician convicted on Friday of helping the Naxalites Maoist guerrillas. Sen, whose work among the poor of Chhattisgarh State has been praised around the world and won him the support of dozens of Nobel laureates, appeared on charges of sedition and conspiracy. “Life in prison is an unusually harsh sentence for anyone, much less for an internationally recognized human rights defender,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific director. “Authorities in India should immediately drop these politically motivated charges.”
UNITED STATES
‘Ivory Queen of Soul’ dies
Teena Marie, the “Ivory Queen of Soul,” who developed a lasting legacy with her silky soul pipes and with hits like Lovergirl, Square Biz, and Fire and Desire with mentor Rick James, has died in Los Angeles. She was 54. The confirmation came from a publicist, Jasmine Vega, who worked with Teena Marie on her last album, last year’s Congo Square. Marie certainly wasn’t the first white act to sing soul music, but she was arguably among the most gifted and respected, and was thoroughly embraced by the black audience. Marie made her debut on the legendary Motown label in 1979, becoming one of the very few white acts to break the race barrier of the groundbreaking black-owned record label. The cover of her debut album, Wild and Peaceful, did not feature her image, with Motown apparently fearing black audiences might not buy it if they found out the songstress with the dynamic, gospel-inflected voice was white.
UNITED STATES
Hefner to wed playmate
In a Christmas message on Twitter, 84-year-old Playboy tycoon Hugh Hefner said on Sunday in Los Angeles he had proposed to girlfriend Crystal Harris, a former Playmate of the Month 60 years his junior. “When I gave Crystal the ring, she burst into tears. This is the happiest Christmas weekend in memory,” Hefner tweeted. Hefner sent a second message on Sunday to clear up any lingering doubts about his intentions. “Yes, the ring I gave Crystal is an engagement ring. I didn’t mean to make a mystery out of it. A very merry Christmas to all,” it said. Harris, a stunning 24-year-old blond, did not explicitly confirm she had accepted his Christmas Eve proposal but, encouragingly, retweeted his messages.
MEXICO
Six found dead in pit mine
Six members of the same family were found dead in a pit in the most violent state of Chihuahua three months after they were kidnapped, prosecutors said on Sunday. On Friday, people exploring the area around an abandoned mine found the body of a boy under age 17 and the bodies of five men aged 19 to 34, the Chihuahua attorney general’s office said in a statement. The bodies were found floating in the water of a crater meters from the mine in the mountain town of Urique, about 600km south of crime capital Ciudad Juarez. Prosecutors told local media some of the victims were brothers and cousins. Armed men captured the group three months ago. Authorities attribute the wave of violence in Chihuahua, especially in Ciudad Juarez, to a dispute between the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels for control of lucrative drug routes into the US.
UNITED STATES
Clinton to stump for Rahm
Former president Bill Clinton will campaign in support of former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s bid for Chicago mayor. Emanuel campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said on Sunday that Clinton would be in Chicago next month to appear on Emanuel’s behalf. A date and place have not been determined. Emanuel formally announced he would run for Chicago mayor last month, just weeks after leaving his post as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff. Before his time in the Obama administration, Emanuel spent five years as a congressman for Illinois. Emanuel held various positions in the Clinton administration, including senior policy adviser, director of special projects and political director. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has said he will not seek a seventh term.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion