HUNGARY
Jobs to be immortalized
Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple, will be immortalized in Budapest with a statue, Graphisoft, a Hungarian firm Jobs helped to prominence, said on Friday. “Graphisoft ... will erect a statue to commemorate Apple’s legendary founder” on Dec. 21, the company, known globally for its architectural design software ArchiCAD, said in a statement. Steve Jobs, who died on Oct. 5 following a long battle with cancer, “was the creator of technology with a human face,” it said. The statue will be erected in a science park that hosts several IT companies, including Graphisoft. Apple has supported the Hungarian firm since 1984, when Jobs saw it at the annual CEBIT expo in Germany, the company said.
ITALY
‘Blind’ woman outed
A woman claiming a disability allowance for blindness was remanded in custody on Friday for benefit fraud after police filmed her working as a hairdresser and cycling about town on her bicycle. The 62-year-old woman, who owns a hair salon in the town of Lugo in the north of the country, began claiming the benefit in 1986 because her vision was degenerating. By this year she claimed to be “totally blind,” according to a police statement. By 1997 her doctor said she had to be accompanied when she left the house and by 2008 she could only count the number of fingers held up in front of her if the hand was held a few centimeters away from her face. In double-checking a list of professions of those registered as blind, police stumbled across the salon and filmed the woman cutting clients’ hair, shopping for clothes and food and walking and cycling about the town. Her benefit — 43,000 euros (US$59,000) so far — has been suspended.
FRANCE
Sword-wielding man kills
A man armed with a Japanese samurai sword killed a policewoman and wounded two other people on Friday during an attack on a local government office in the central city of Bourges, police said. The 33-year-old man was shot in the leg and wounded during the attack, which took place at a local prefect’s office. Witnesses said that before the attack the man had been rejected for a gun license at the office. He returned with the 80cm sword and attacked police when they attempted to subdue him. The 30-year-old policewoman was seriously wounded and died shortly after the attack, the interior ministry said. A police officer shot and wounded the attacker, after which he was subdued and taken into custody, witnesses said.
SOUTH KOREA
Conman uses homeless
A man has been arrested for arranging sham marriages between homeless men and visa-seeking Vietnamese women, an immigration official said on Friday. The 40-year-old man was held on Wednesday by a special immigration investigation team for arranging the fake marriages, an official at Seoul’s immigration office said. Three other alleged marriage brokers are being investigated by prosecutors. The brokers contacted homeless men at Seoul railway stations and promised them a free trip to Vietnam and up to three million won (US$2,600) if they agreed to the fake marriages, the official said on condition of anonymity. Vietnamese brides, who were seeking the right to live and work in the country, paid between US$18,000 to US$20,000. The homeless men were flown to Vietnam to marry and the supposed couples then returned to South Korea for another wedding ceremony before the brides parted company with their spouses and disappeared.
UNITED STATES
NASA books Virgin flight
NASA has booked a charter suborbital flight from Virgin Galactic’s spaceport operations in southern New Mexico. Virgin Galactic announced on Thursday that the agreement calls for NASA to charter a full flight from the company, and it includes options for two additional flights. If all options are exercised, the contract is worth US$4.5 million. Virgin Galactic says each mission allows for up to 590kg of scientific experiment equipment. Earlier this week, Virgin Galactic announced it had hired former NASA executive Michael Moses as vice president of operations. Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Aabar Investments. It is on track to be the world’s first commercial spaceline and hopes to launch its first flight within the next year from Spaceport America, about 80km north of Las Cruces, New Mexico.
UNITED STATES
Pumpkin prices soar
A hurricane that drenched the northeast in August is having a knock-on effect on festivities months later, with pumpkin prices soaring after heavy rains ruined patches, officials said on Friday. The Department of Agriculture warned in a blogpost that in the wake of Hurricane Irene, prices for pumpkins large and small were higher than last year. However, pumpkins are grown “in nearly every state, so the supply is widely disbursed,” the department added, calling on lovers of the famous orange squash to send in photos of their creations. Pumpkins are often traditionally carved for the late October festivities of Halloween into scary, humorous or abstract shapes. A candle is placed inside the hollowed pumpkin left outside homes. The Wall Street Journal reported that prices for smaller pumpkins grown in Maryland and then sold in New York state are 60 times higher than a year ago.
HONDURAS
Six killed leaving airport
Police said six men were shot dead on Friday as they left an airport in the northern part of the country, which has one of the world’s highest homicide rates. The incident took place at the exit for the carpark at the airport in San Pedro Sula, 240km north of the capital, Tegucigalpa. On Thursday, the Violence Observatory at the National Autonomous University of Honduras released a study indicating that the small Central American country of 8 million was on course to break world records with its murder rate. Authorities have blamed some of the violence on international drug cartels, which have used Central American countries as transit routes to export cocaine to the US.
GUATEMALA
Heavy rains threaten region
Central America was on maximum alert on Friday as heavy rains threatened to lash the region over the weekend, while the death toll rose to 37 from a storm system in the past week. The toll in neighboring Mexico rose to eight, with three more reported dead in the wake of Jova, which separately hit the Pacific coast as a hurricane on Tuesday before weakening to a tropical storm. Storm systems in Central America and Mexico triggered heavy flooding, blocked roads and caused electricity outages and mudslides. Many homes were destroyed and more than 70,000 people affected. Torrential rains carried away bridges in Guatemala, where 22 people were confirmed dead, according to local authorities and emergency services. President Alvaro Colom told reporters that two people were still missing, while the US offered four helicopters to help rescue efforts in isolated communities.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in