AUSTRALIA
New dingo inquiry scheduled
The father of a baby who vanished in the Outback says he is confident that a new inquiry into the tragedy will officially rule that a dingo took his daughter. The disappearance of nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain in 1980 divided Australians between those who believed a native dog, known as a dingo, killed her and those who believed she was murdered by her mother. A coroner in February will review the finding of the third inquest that failed to determine a cause of death. Michael Chamberlain said yesterday he is confident the new inquiry will blame a dingo.
BANGLADESH
Hyacinth helps families
Ask a farmer in the country’s deep south about the water hyacinth and he will say it is a curse. The floating plants form broad green blankets that strangle waterways and create a prime breeding ground for mosquitoes. However, for Minati Mondol, a 55-year-old widow in the Agailjhara area of Barisal district near the Bay of Bengal, the hyacinth stands for the hope embodied by Christmas. Mondol is part of a group of artisans who turn the stem of the plant into Christmas figures, stars, streamers and gift cards for buyers in Europe and North America. “My family was so poor we used to boil and eat the roots and flowers of the water hyacinth,” Mondol said. “Now we make stars and angels out of water hyacinth and eat rice three times a day.” Although most of the women have never seen the inside of a church, they have plenty to cheer about during the festive season.
CHINA
Official denounces religion
A Chinese Communist Party official says growing religious practice among members is threatening its unity and leadership. Zhu Weiqun (朱維群) reinforced the demand that party members not believe in religion or engage in religious practice. He said religious practice is a growing trend, especially in areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, and must not be tolerated. Zhu’s stern remarks to the party’s 80 million members appear in the latest edition of its main theoretical journal, Qiushi, and were reported yesterday by Xinhua news agency. The remarks come amid a spike in tensions between Beijing and the Vatican and crackdowns on independent churches, Buddhist monasteries and religious practice among Uighur Muslims in the northwest.
SOUTH AFRICA
ANC power struggle grows
Firebrand party rebel Julius Malema mocked South African President Jacob Zuma at a provincial conference over the weekend, local media said, in the latest sign of a growing power struggle within the ruling African National Congress (ANC) ahead of its leadership election next year. Malema, currently appealing a five-year suspension from the ANC, led supporters at a conference on Saturday in singing “The shower man is giving us a hard time,” the Sunday Times said. The paper showed a photograph of a beret-clad Malema cupping his hand over his head to imitate a shower. The reference was to Zuma’s admission in a 2006 rape trial — in which he was acquitted — that he did not use a condom during sex with a woman he knew to be HIV-positive, but took a shower afterward in the hope of reducing the risk of infection. Malema was attending an ANC conference in his home province of Limpopo, where he still commands wide support. The ANC last month expelled the 30-year-old leader of its powerful youth wing for five years for dividing the party and bringing it into disrepute.
UNITED STATES
Man charged with burning
Police on Sunday arrested a handyman suspected of brutally burning an elderly woman to death, dousing her with flammable liquid and setting her on fire in a New York City elevator. Security video cameras caught images of a man attacking Deloris Gillespie, 73, as she attempted to leave an elevator in her Brooklyn apartment building. He allegedly covered the victim with the flammable liquid then set her ablaze, local media reported. The man had a strong smell of gasoline when he walked into a nearby police station early on Sunday, local media reported, adding that he told police the victim owed him US$2,000 for work he had done for her. Isaac did not confess to any crime, police said, but now faces charges murder and arson charges.
UNITED STATES
Woman’s bones identified
Bones found in a coastal wetland on New York’s Long Island last week are the remains of missing prostitute Shannan Gilbert, investigators confirmed on Saturday. The New Jersey woman disappeared in the spring of last year after fleeing from a client’s home in Oak Beach, a small community on one of the barrier islands that line Long Island’s Atlantic coast. She was last seen racing into the night toward the marsh, where her remains were discovered on Tuesday. A cause of death has yet to be determined. Police who were hunting for Gilbert wound up finding 10 other sets of human remains that had been discarded along a nearby beach parkway over two decades.
GREECE
Suicides jump by 40%
Painful austerity measures and a seemingly endless economic drama is exacting a deadly toll on the nation. Statistics released by the Ministry of Health show a 40 percent rise in those taking their own lives between January and May this year compared to the same period last year. Before the financial crisis first began to bite three years ago, Greece had the lowest suicide rate in Europe at 2.8 per 100,000 inhabitants. It now has almost double that number, the highest on the continent, despite the stigma in a nation where the Orthodox Church refuses funeral rights for those who take their lives. Attempted suicides have also increased. Psychiatrists have reported a 30 percent increase in demand for their services over the past year with most patients citing anxiety and depression brought on by financial fears.
UNITED STATES
Boehner opposes extension
The fate of an expiring tax break for 160 million workers was in doubt on Sunday after House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner declared his opposition to a two-month extension passed overwhelmingly by the Senate. Boehner said on NBC’s Meet the Press program that the two-month renewal would create added uncertainty for workers and employers and that Congress should delay its holiday break to ensure that a one-year extension was passed.
CHILE
Separated twin dies
The director of a children’s hospital says a baby girl who was surgically separated from her conjoined twin has died. Hospital director Osvaldo Artaza said Maria Jose Paredes Navarrete died on Sunday night due to general organ failure. Doctors separated her late on Tuesday from her twin sister Maria Paz, who continues clinging to life. The public has closely followed the condition of the 10-month-old girls.
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