AUSTRALIA
Official slams Republicans
Treasurer Wayne Swan, in an unusually blunt criticism of US politics weeks before the presidential election, said “cranks and crazies” had taken over the US’ Republican Party. Swan also labeled the Tea Party wing of the Republicans as “extreme.” “Let’s be blunt and acknowledge the biggest threat to the world’s biggest economy are the cranks and crazies that have taken over the Republican Party,” Swan said in a speech to a conference in Sydney. The Republican Party’s position on the US budget had led a year ago to the deadlock in negotiations, Swan said, to prevent the looming “fiscal cliff” — nearly US$600 billion in planned spending cuts and tax hikes that will bite early next year. “Despite President Obama’s goodwill and strong efforts, the national interest was held hostage by the rise of the extreme Tea Party wing of the Republican Party,” he said.
AFGHANISTAN
US surge troops withrdraw
The last of the 33,000 US soldiers that US President Barack Obama sent to Afghanistan nearly three years ago as part of a military surge has left the country, US defense officials said Thursday. The withdrawal of surge troops, which began in July, follows an unprecedented number of Western soldiers being shot dead by their Afghan colleagues — 51 so far this year — and as anti-West protests sweep Muslim countries. There are still about 68,000 US military forces in Afghanistan, as well as around 40,000 from NATO’s International Security Assistance Force coalition.
MYANMAR
Pussy Riot get unlikely fan
Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is calling for the release of the members of the Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot. At an event organized by Amnesty International on Thursday, Aung San Suu Kyi accepted a bouquet from family members of one of the group’s three members, Nadia Tolokonnikova. The punk band members were sentenced last month to two years in prison for performing an irreverent song mocking Russian President Vladimir Putin inside Moscow’s main cathedral. Responding to a question, Aung San Suu Kyi said: “I don’t see why people should not sing whatever they want to sing.”
SOUTH KOREA
President accepts probe
President Lee Myung-bak yesterday accepted an independent investigation into alleged irregularities surrounding a now-defunct project to build his retirement home after he leaves office. The probe is potentially embarrassing for Lee’s ruling conservative New Frontier Party with December’s presidential election just 90 days away. Lee waived his rights to veto a parliamentary motion calling for a special prosecutor to look into the house scheme, presidential spokesman Park Jeong-ha told reporters.
UNITED STATES
Diamond to go on auction
A 76-carat diamond, billed as one of the most famous in the world, is expected to fetch well over US$15 million when it hits the auction block in November, Christie’s said yesterday. The colossal gem, which Christie’s said was the finest and largest perfect Golconda diamond ever to appear at auction, is perfect in color and is internally flawless. “The legendary Golconda mines in India produced some of the world’s most famous diamonds, including the Dresden Green, the Blue Hope, and the Koh-i-Noor [in the Royal Collection at the Tower of London],” Rahul Kadakia, head of jewelry for Christie’s Americas and Switzerland, told Reuters. The diamond, named the Archduke Joseph Diamond for one of its former owners, is the highlight of Christie’s sale of precious gems in Geneva in November, the auction house said in a statement. A Christie’s spokeswoman said the owner of the diamond wanted to remain anonymous. Prices for rare, top quality diamonds have soared in recent years. Higher prices attained in recent years include the Wittelsbach Diamond — a 17th-century cushion-shaped deep grayish-blue diamond, which sold for US$24.3 million in 2008 at Christie’s in London.
FRANCE
Mammoth relic on sale
Looking for that must-have ornament for a cavernous living room or backyard lawn? Perk up, Sotheby’s is putting a complete mammoth skeleton up for sale in Paris. The auction house plans the Oct. 2 sale as part of a collection of fossils, skeletons, meteors and minerals — and even a dinosaur egg and woolly rhinoceros skeleton — from the Kashiwagi museum in Japan. Sotheby’s said in a statement on Thursday that the skeleton of Mammuthus primigenius, from Siberia, dates to the Middle Paleolithic period when Neanderthals roamed Earth. The house estimates it will go for more than 185,000 euros (US$241,000). The mammoth skeleton, which has been arranged in a bit of an upward-facing pose, measures 3.5m in height — just slightly taller than it is long.
UNITED STATES
Singer arrested over drugs
Singer-songwriter Fiona Apple has been arrested for hashish possession at a West Texas town after a border patrol drug-sniffing dog detected marijuana in her tour bus. Hudspeth County Sheriff’s office spokesman Rusty Flemming says Apple spent Wednesday night in the county jail and was released on Thursday on a US$10,000 bond. Fleming says Apple “had a little tiny amount of pot and hash.” Fleming says marijuana possession in small amounts is a misdemeanor, while hashish in any quantity is a felony in Texas. Apple’s publicist, Ambrosia Healy, did not immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment.
MEXICO
Police shoot gunmen dead
Authorities say three gunmen have been killed after attacking police hunting for inmates who joined in a mass escape from a prison near the US border. The Coahuila State Prosecutor’s office says the gunmen were in a truck in a residential area of the border city of Piedras Negras when they fired on state police officers on Thursday who were helping look for some of the 131 prisoners who fled a nearby prison early in the week. Investigators have yet to determine whether the dead gunmen were escapees. The statement says the truck matches records of a vehicle stolen in San Antonio, Texas. Authorities say the Zetas drug cartel orchestrated the prison break apparently with the help of prison personnel. Three escapees have been recaptured so far.
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
‘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