AUSTRALIA
New Cabinet sworn in
Prime Minister Julia Gillard swore in her new Cabinet yesterday, as two major opinion polls showed her government faced likely defeat at elections in September. A poll by Sydney-based market researcher Newspoll published in the Australian newspaper yesterday found support for Labor was trailing opposition leader Tony Abbott’s conservative coalition 44 percent to 56 percent. A poll by Sydney-based Galaxy Research published in News Corp newspapers yesterday found the coalition was leading Labor 54 percent to 46 percent.
ANTARCTICA
‘Shackleton’ team ashore
An exhausted British-Australian expedition recreating Ernest Shackleton’s 1916 crossing of the Southern Ocean in a small boat made landfall yesterday after a perilous 12-day journey. Led by renowned adventurer Tim Jarvis, the team of six reached Peggotty Bluff on rugged South Georgia, where they landed their vessel in the same place Shackleton and his men beached the James Caird nearly 100 years ago. The next leg will see three of the team tackle a two-day climb to 900m over the mountainous, crevassed interior of South Georgia. Jarvis said the boat trip, using only the equipment, navigational instruments and food available to Shackleton, was extremely tough, describing it as “truly about endurance — mental as much as physical. There was just no way to keep dry. The waterproofing with wax didn’t work,” he said.
CHINA
‘Crazy English’ Li divorced
A Beijing court has granted a divorce to a US woman and her celebrity-entrepreneur husband in a high-profile case that highlighted the often-hidden problem of domestic violence. The case began when Kim Lee posted graphic photographs of the injuries she said came from her husband, Li Yang (李陽) on her microblog in 2011. Li Yang’s chain of English language schools, “Crazy English,” is a household name in the country. The photographs went viral. Xinhua news agency said the divorce was granted on Sunday on the grounds of domestic abuse and the court approved Lee’s request for a three-month restraining order against Li. Reports said the court ordered Li to pay his former wife 50,000 yuan (US$8,000) compensation for mental anguish, as well as child support. She will also have custody of their three daughters and receive properties worth more than 12 million yuan.
JAPAN
Chinese fishermen released
The coast guard has released the captain and crew of a Chinese boat who was arrested for illegal fishing southwest of islands claimed by both countries. Coast guard official Yasuhiko Oku said the captain and 12 crewmembers of the 100 tonne boat were released on Sunday after the Chinese consulate in Fukuoka guaranteed payment of a ¥4 million (US$44,000) bail.
SOUTH KOREA
Joint naval drill starts
The country launched a joint naval exercise with the US involving a US nuclear submarine yesterday. A defense ministry spokesman confirmed the three-day drill was underway in the Sea of Japan (known as the “East Sea” in the country), off Pohang. Although military officials said the drill was scheduled before the North threatened to detonate its third nuclear device, the presence of the submarine has been seen as a warning to Pyongyang. The USS San Francisco, armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, is joined in the drill by a 9,800 tonnes Aegis destroyer, the USS Shiloh.
UNITED KINGDOM
Malala recovers post-surgery
Doctors said on Sunday that Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban in October last year, has had successful surgery on her skull. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham said the 15-year-old had undergone two operations on Saturday to insert a titanium plate into her skull and fit an electronic device in her left ear to restore her hearing. A hospital spokeswoman said the schoolgirl’s medical team were “very pleased” with her progress following five hours of surgery.
UNITED KINGDOM
Man tasered outside palace
A man who was shocked by police with a Taser stun gun as he waved large knives outside Buckingham Palace was charged yesterday with affray and possessing a bladed weapon in public. Talhat Rehman, 54, was seen ranting and pressing one of the knives to his chest outside the palace, just before noon on Sunday.
UNITED STATES
Crash leaves eight dead
A tour bus collided with a car and pickup truck, killing at least eight people and injuring dozens of others on Sunday night on a Southern California mountain highway, authorities said. California Highway Patrol spokesman Mario Lopez confirmed the deaths and said 38 people were taken to hospitals with injuries. He also said the bus driver reported having brake problems as it headed down the mountain on two-lane State Route 38, rear-ending a sedan then flipping over and hitting a pickup truck that was pulling a trailer. The bus was carrying a tour group from Tijuana, Mexico.
RUSSIA
Filin heads to Germany
Bolshoi Ballet artistic director Sergei Filin left a Moscow hospital yesterday morning to move to a clinic in Aachen, Germany, for further treatment after he suffered serious eye damage in an acid attack. Filin, wearing dark glasses and supported by his wife, was set to have his first medical examination in Germany later yesterday. “I feel good, I would even say excellent. If only my eyes saw a bit better,” Filin told journalists outside the hospital, describing his vision as “foggy and blurred.” “I sometimes open my eyes, but what I see is only just enough to be able to sense objects or to wash, that is the maximum,” he said in televised remarks. The 42-year-old has already undergone five operations on his eyes since being rushed to hospital on Jan. 17 after being splashed in the face with sulphuric acid.
ITALY
Revellers flock to Venice
About 70,000 revellers, many wearing elaborate costumes and masks, thronged Venice’s St Mark’s Square on Sunday to watch the traditional “flight of the angel,” a highlight of the annual Carnival. Marta Finotto, a 20-year-old student, had the honor of performing the stunt, gliding on a harness from the 99m belltower of Saint Mark’s Basilica to a stage below, wearing a black top hat and a red gown with matching boots. The Venice Carnival, which began on Jan. 26, winds up on Feb. 12.
CUBA
Fidel Castro casts vote
Fidel Castro made a surprise appearance in Havana on Sunday to vote in parliamentary polls. The 86-year-old’s visit to the voting precinct in El Vedado neighborhood was the main event in Sunday’s elections, during which Cubans chose 612 members of the National Assembly as well as deputies of local legislatures. He had not been seen in public since Oct. 21 last year, fueling rumors that his health had worsened.
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
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.