UNITED STATES
Quake triggers mini-tsunami
A magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck deep under the ocean floor near Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, triggering shaking felt over vast distances and setting off a small tsunami, the National Tsunami Warning Center said. A tsunami warning prompted the evacuation of about 200 residents in Adak to higher ground, city manager Layton Lockett said. The warning was later downgraded to an advisory. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from the quake, which was initially measured at a magnitude of 8, but later revised down. The quake was so large and deep that it triggered dozens of aftershocks in an hour and prompted enough shaking to be picked up by seismometers around the world over the next 24 hours, Alaska Earthquake Center director Mike West said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Girl mutilation ‘un-Islamic’
The Muslim Council of Britain has condemned female genital mutilation (FGM) as “un-Islamic” and told its members that FGM risks bringing the religion into disrepute. The influential council has for the first time issued explicit guidance on the controversial practice, which criticizes it and says it is “no longer linked to the teaching of Islam.” It added that one of the “basic principles” of Islam was that believers should not harm themselves or others. The organization is to send flyers to each of the 500 mosques that form its membership. They will also be distributed in community centers in a drive to eradicate a practice that affects 125 million women and girls worldwide.
SUDAN
Christian convert freed
A 27-year-old woman who was sentenced to death last month for converting to Christianity from Islam was freed on Monday after what the government said was “unprecedented” international pressure. Mariam Yahya Ibrahim, who is married to a Christian American, was ordered by a court last month to return to Islam and sentenced to 100 lashes and to death. Ibrahim was sent to a secret location for her protection, her lawyer said. Ibrahim gave birth in prison to a daughter, her second child by husband Daniel Wani, whom she married in 2011.
UNITED STATES
Mormons oust female leader
The Mormon church has excommunicated the founder of a prominent women’s group for “conduct contrary” to its laws and order, according to an e-mail cited on Monday by the woman involved. Kate Kelly, a founder of Ordain Women, said in a blog that she had been informed of her ouster after an all-male panel held a disciplinary trial over her case on Sunday. Kelly said the panel convicted her of the charge of apostasy and has decided to excommunicate her, the most serious punishment that can be levied by a ecclesiastical court. “The decision to force me outside my congregation and community is exceptionally painful,” Kelly said.
MEXICO
Skulls found in teddy bears
Inspectors found two skulls and other human remains hidden inside teddy bears at a Mexico City airport shipping company. Employees made the find when they ran the plush bears through an X-ray machine during a routine inspection, the Mexico City Public Prosecutor’s Office said on Sunday. The human remains “appear to have been recently exhumed,” the office said. Authorities arrested the man mailing the package, who said he bought the skulls at a market. The man said the skulls “are in demand abroad by people who practice Santeria,” an Afro-Caribbean syncretic religion.
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