AUSTRALIA
Still life painter Olley dies
Painter Margaret Olley has died at the age of 88, the Art Gallery of New South Wales said yesterday. Best known for her colorful still life paintings, Olley, who was found dead at her Sydney home, was one of the nation’s most important and respected artists. “She was a painter — there was absolutely no other career for her,” gallery director Edmund Capon said, adding that her work was in the grand tradition of still life.
PHILIPPINES
Tropical storm kills seven
Seven people drowned and four are missing, while thousands fled their flooded homes as a tropical storm hit the nation, causing heavy rains and rough seas that disrupted aviation and shipping, officials said yesterday. Tropical storm Nock-ten also left two fishermen missing, while six others were rescued at sea as it approached the main island of Luzon, Civil Defense Administrator Benito Ramos said.
VIETNAM
Catholic priest jailed again
Authorities have sent an ailing Catholic priest and one of the country’s best-known democracy activists back to jail more than a year after his release on medical parole, an official said yesterday. The Reverend Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, 64, was escorted by police from his home at a church in Hue to Ba Sao prison outside Hanoi on Monday night, a prison official said on condition of anonymity, citing policy.
AUSTRALIA
Kangaroo attacks old lady
Police used pepper spray to overpower an aggressive kangaroo after it attacked a 94-year-old woman as she tended to the laundry in her backyard. Kangaroos rarely stray into urbanized areas, but police Sergeant Stephen Perkins said yesterday two officers were sent to assist the woman, who was attacked by a “Big Red” in the town of Charleville in southwest Queensland earlier this week. “Upon alighting from the car, the kangaroo approached one of the officers, the kangaroo was aggressive and the officer had to deploy his capsicum spray to subdue the animal,” Perkins told Reuters. The kangaroo initially retreated, but spotted the second police officer and bounded toward him, and was sprayed a second time.
NORTH KOREA
All voters vote: officials
All people who took part in local elections on Sunday voted for state--selected candidates and turnout was 99.97 percent, state media said yesterday. A total of 28,116 representatives were elected as deputies to assemblies at provincial, city and county level with not a single vote of opposition to the candidates, the Korean Central News Agency said. “Only those on foreign tours or working on the oceans could not take part in the election,” KCNA said. Typically, 99 percent of voters take part in elections and 99 percent of them vote for uncontested candidates.
CHINA
Pork dealers sentenced
A Henan Province court yesterday handed out long sentences, including a suspended death penalty, to five people involved in producing and selling pork tainted with a poisonous chemical, Xinhua news agency said. The pigs were fed clenbuterol to produce lean meat, which sells for a premium in China, the world’s largest producer and consumer of pork. Aside from the suspended death sentence, which in practice means a life sentence, the other suspects got sentences ranging from nine years in prison to life, Xinhua said.
GAZA STRIP
Israeli ‘collaborators’ killed
Hamas yesterday executed two men convicted of collaboration with Israel, the interior ministry said in a statement. It was the second time this year that the Islamist movement had carried out an execution of someone accused of “collaborating” with the Israelis. The statement did not say how the death sentence was carried out and it was not immediately clear when the two men were convicted. In May, a man referred to as A.S. was executed by firing squad after being convicted of collaboration a month earlier.
RUSSIA
Militant vows ‘blood, tears’
Moscow’s most wanted Islamist militant Doku Umarov said the country would be the target of a newly strengthened insurgency in a video posted on an Islamist affiliated Web site on Monday. Chechen-born Umarov, 47, claimed responsibility for masterminding the January suicide bombing of Moscow’s Domodedovo International Airport, which killed 37 people. He has also promised a year of “blood and tears” for Russia ahead of parliamentary elections in December and a presidential poll next year. In the 17-minute-long video Umarov, who styles himself the Emir of the Caucasus, says his insurgency has been strengthened by overcoming recent divisions that saw three high-level militants split from his Caucasus Emirate last year.
MEXICO
Bodies still unidentified
The bodies of 14 migrants massacred with 58 others on a ranch in the northern state of Tamaulipas in August last year have still not been identified, Mexico City’s rights ombudsman said on Monday. Authorities blamed the Zetas drug gang for the brutal killings of 72 migrants on a ranch in San Fernando where another 193 bodies were also found in hidden graves in April. Ombudsman Luis Gonzalez Placencia told a Mexico City news conference that 14 remaining unidentified bodies from the migrant massacre had now been moved to Toluca.
UNITED STATES
Avenger accepts plea
A man who killed one US soldier and wounded another — an act he called retribution for the deaths of Muslims abroad — took an unexpected plea deal on Monday that abruptly ended his murder trial and spared him the death penalty. Abdulhakim Muhammad has repeatedly said he drove to a Little Rock, Arkansas, recruiting station, drew an assault rifle and fired on the two uniformed soldiers. On Monday, Muhammad stood before a judge and once more admitted to the shooting. Judge Herbert Wright then sentenced Muhammad to life in prison without parole for capital murder, with 11 more life sentences on the remaining charges and an additional 180 years in prison.
SAUDI ARABIA
Amnesty says site blocked
Amnesty International said Saudi authorities on Monday blocked the group’s Web site inside the kingdom following criticism of a controversial new anti-terrorism draft law. The London-based group said the bill, which was reviewed by a Saudi government committee last month and has yet to be passed, allows authorities to prosecute peaceful dissent as a terrorist crime. Amnesty on Friday posted on its Web site the full Arabic text of the anti-terrorism draft law along with an internal review of the law by a Saudi security committee. Hours after the Web site was blocked on Monday, Amnesty moved the text of the bill to another Amnesty-administered Web site, which could be accessed by residents in the kingdom.
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