ARGENTINA
‘Top Gear’ crew spark ruckus
A crew from the BBC television program Top Gear has left an Argentine province after being denied permission to film by local authorities who said that one of its cars had a license plate alluding to the Falklands War between the nation and the UK. Juan Manuel Romano, secretary of social development for Ushuaia in the southern province of Tierra del Fuego, said that the program’s crew and host Jeremy Clarkson were escorted to the airport. “They have taken the decision to leave,” he said. The Top Gear crew was in Argentina to film using three cars: a Porsche, a Lotus and a Mustang. Local officials said that the Porsche had the license plate “H982 FKL,” which they felt was a reference to the 1982 war between the nations over the Falkland Islands. Argentina, which lost the war, still claims the island group it calls Las Malvinas. A group of former Argentine combatants in the war had held a protest in front of the hotel where Clarkson and the BBC crew were staying. The British newspaper The Telegraph said that the BBC denied that the license plate was intentionally chosen. “Top Gear production purchased three cars for a forthcoming program; to suggest that this car was either chosen for its number plate or that an alternative number plate was substituted for the original is completely untrue,” BBC executive producer Andy Wilman was quoted as saying.
RUSSIA
Rocket test date set
The nation plans to test launch its new heavy-lift Angara space rocket on Dec. 25, Interfax news agency yesterday quoted a source in the space industry as saying. The Angara is the first new family of space rockets developed by Russia since the Soviet era and is a vital part of President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to revive the space industry. A lighter version was launched successfully in July. “All relevant departments, including the Ministry of Defense, have agreed on the planned launch date,” the source told Interfax. The Roscosmos space agency did not immediately comment. After more than two decades in the making, the first test launch of the smaller Angara-1.2PP was aborted in June after a technical problem was detected as Putin watched from the Kremlin. The successful launch was on July 9.
UNITED STATES
Men held in poultry carnage
Fresno County law enforcement officials have arrested four young men suspected of breaking into a California chicken ranch and killing more than 900 birds with a golf club. Fresno County sheriff’s officials acting on several tips on Wednesday tracked down 18-year-old Gabriel Quintero of Riverdale. Also taken into custody were two 17-year-olds and a 15-year-old. All have been arrested on charges of burglary and felony cruelty to animals. Fresno Sheriff’s Department spokesman Christian Curtice said that he cannot release information about what prompted the poultry slaughter. Investigators said that the suspects pulled back a fence on Sept. 20 to break into a Foster Farms site. Once inside the poultry company’s barn, investigators said that they beat 920 chickens to death with a golf club and possibly another blunt instrument. The suspects were caught by a special Fresno-based agricultural crimes task force, a unit established to investigate farm-related crimes in the nation’s leading agricultural business county, with US$5 billion in annual revenues. Not all the chickens at the facility were killed, Foster Farms spokesman Ira Brill said, adding that the barns typically hold several thousand chickens.
As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout. A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes. Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season. Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel
Does Argentine President Javier Milei communicate with a ghost dog whose death he refuses to accept? Forced to respond to questions about his mental health, the president’s office has lashed out at “disrespectful” speculation. Twice this week, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni was asked about Milei’s English Mastiff, Conan, said to have died seven years ago. Milei, 53, had Conan cloned, and today is believed to own four copies he refers to as “four-legged children.” Or is it five? In an interview with CNN this month, Milei referred to his five dogs, whose faces and names he had engraved on the presidential baton. Conan,
French singer Kendji Girac, who was seriously injured by a gunshot this week, wanted to “fake” his suicide to scare his partner who was threatening to leave him, prosecutors said on Thursday. The 27-year-old former winner of France’s version of The Voice was found wounded after police were called to a traveler camp in Biscarrosse on France’s southwestern coast. Girac told first responders he had accidentally shot himself while tinkering with a Colt .45 automatic pistol he had bought at a junk shop, a source said. On Thursday, regional prosecutor Olivier Janson said, citing the singer, that he wanted to “fake” his suicide
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other