AUSTRALIA
Lightning kills tourist
A German tourist who was struck by lightning last week has died from her injuries, officials said yesterday. Stefanie Wiedenroth, 22, died on Monday after her parents had traveled from Germany to be at her side, the Royal Perth Hospital said. Wiedenroth was on a working holiday at a remote sheep station in Western Australia when lightning hit her on Friday morning as she was walking in a paddock. Four other people standing nearby were reportedly thrown to the ground, but not seriously injured. Her employer Darren Major said he was standing about 25m away from Wiedenroth when she was struck. “Right above us it was basically blue skies, but just off to the west of us there were clouds brewing, but nothing to be concerned about — it was basically just a normal day,” he told the West Australian newspaper. “It was just a freak lightning strike, that’s the only way I can describe it,” he added.
AUSTRALIA
Hitler remark causes upset
The head of Vienna’s Jewish community is urging that a far-right politician running for EU parliament withdraw his candidacy over his suggestion that Adolf Hitler’s rule was more liberal than the EU. Oskar Deutsch demanded that Andreas Moelzer drop out for saying that the EU is a dictatorship that makes the Third Reich look “possibly ... liberal.” Moelzer spoke last month, but his comments were reported only recently. Deutsch said on Monday that “such people cannot represent Austria” in the EU parliament. Moelzer said he only meant to point to EU overregulation. Moelzer is on the far-right fringe of his FPO party, which has made huge gains over recent years with a strongly Euroskeptic, anti-corruption and anti-foreigner message. It now regularly polls as the most popular of all Austrian parties.
THAILAND
Bus crash kills at least 30
A double-decker bus carrying municipal workers on a field trip plunged off a steep road and into a ravine, killing at least 30 people and injuring 22, officials said yesterday. The accident on Monday night was the latest fatal crash on a mountain road in Tak Province known for its treacherous dips and turns where 300 accidents occurred last year, provincial governor Suriya Prasatbunditya said. The driver was trying to pass cars on a winding downhill road when it skidded off the edge and flipped several times as it tumbled about 30m into a valley before crashing into a tree, Suriya said.
ISRAEL
Minister accused of assault
Energy Minister Silvan Shalom, tipped as a possible presidential candidate, has been accused of sexual assault against a female former employee, media reported on Monday. The alleged victim, who worked for the now 55-year-old member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, has filed a complaint, the reports said. Police said they were “investigating accusations against a minister,” without giving any further details. Speaking anonymously to army radio, the former employee said Shalom had on one occasion in 1999 called her to deliver documents to a Jerusalem hotel room where he was staying, and she found him naked. Shalom, who was serving as science minister at the time, then forced her to perform oral sex on him, she said. Shalom was expected to run in a June 14 presidential election as a possible successor to Shimon Peres, and he was about to announce his candidature, according to local media.
FRANCE
‘Closet’ renter compensated
A Paris court on Monday ordered nearly 12,000 euros (US$16,500) in compensation to be paid to a man who rented a “broom closet” for 15 years. The court said the owner of the tiny apartment and its property manager violated city bylaws on the minimum legal size of rentals. The court ordered the two to pay 10,000 euros in damages for violating property rights, 1,000 euros in moral damages and about 815 euros to cover relocation expenses. Only 1.52m2 of the sloped-ceiling room were deemed habitable. Under law, the minimum allowable size for housing is 9m2 of floor space and a floor-to-ceiling height of 2.2m. The man rented the closet, which contained a sink, but no toilet or shower, for 300 euros a month. His lawyer, Aurelie Geoffroy, praised the court for sending a message to those who try to rent “micro-housing.” Patrick Doutreligne of the Abbe Pierre Foundation for Housing for the Underprivileged said he should have received more, denouncing the lodgings as “not even a room, but a broom closet.”
CANADA
Ill man sparks Ebola alarm
A man who recently traveled to Liberia is seriously ill and being kept in isolation in a Saskatoon hospital with symptoms of a hemorrhagic fever resembling the Ebola virus, health officials said. Denise Werker, Saskatchewan Province’s deputy chief medical health officer on Monday said tests have been sent to the National Microbiology Laboratory’s Public Health Agency in Winnipeg. Results were expected yesterday, but Werker said they may be inconclusive. “All we know at this point is that we have a person who is critically ill who traveled from a country where these diseases occur,” she said. “There is no risk to the general public at all about this.” In West Africa, health workers are trying to contain an Ebola outbreak which is believed to have killed at least 59 people in Guinea. In Liberia, officials are investigating five deaths after a group of people crossed the border from Guinea in search of medical treatment.
AUSTRIA
‘Apollo’ moon camera sold
A Hasselblad 500 camera billed at an auction as having made it to the moon and back was sold over the weekend by Vienna auctioneers Galerie Westlicht for 550,000 euros (US$760,000.) The auction house said the camera was part of the equipment carried by the 1971 Apollo 15 mission, the fourth manned mission to land on the moon. Galerie Westlicht identified the new owner as Japanese businessman Terukazu Fujisawa, who owns an electronics chain and placed his winning bid by telephone. Bidding began on Saturday at 80,000 euros. The gallery initially described the Hasselblad as the only camera ever brought back from the moon, but later said it was one of several, after experts questioned the claim.
GERMANY
Flamingos slain at zoo
Police are hunting for the killer responsible for the death of 15 flamingos at Frankfurt Zoo, some of which were beheaded as they slept. Keepers found nine of the pink birds dead in their enclosure on Friday and another six on Saturday. Zoo director Manfred Niekisch said necropsies are being conducted to determine how they were killed. He says the killer could have been human, but bite marks indicated a fox might have attacked the birds, although they may have already been dead. Niekisch said that despite beefing up security after the first incident, guards could not prevent the second, adding that flamingos do not normally cry for help when attacked.
‘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
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
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