AUSTRALIA
‘Carmen’ banned by sponsor
An opera company is being criticized for banning as part of a sponsorship deal any performances of Carmen because the 140-year-old French opera depicts smoking. For two years West Australian Opera will not stage the popular opera about a Spanish gypsy named Carmen who works in a cigar factory. The ban lasts the duration of a A$400,000 (US$355,000) sponsorship deal with a state government health promotion agency, Healthway. The deal begins in March next year and was revealed in the media on Wednesday. It has split Australians among those who complain of a nanny state and those who applaud its positive public health message. Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday condemned the deal as “political correctness gone crazy.”
CHINA
Putin’s tiger crosses border
An endangered Siberian tiger released into the wild by Russian President Vladimir Putin has become Moscow’s latest export to China, after the beast wandered over the border in search of a meal, Chinese state-run media said on Thursday. The animal, named Kuzya, was among three Siberian tigers set free by the Russian president in May and it has crossed a river forming the border between the two countries, Xinhua news agency reported. Local officials told Xinhua that Kuzya — a male tagged with a tracking device — would have no shortage of food in his new home, adding: “If necessary, we can release cattle into the region to feed it.” The report said local officials are scrambling to capture the wandering big cat on camera and locate its precise whereabouts, while removing hunting traps which might bring its roaming to a sharp end.
GUATEMALA
Court suspends judges
The nation’s highest court has suspended the swearing in of Supreme Court and appellate judges due to concerns that they were improperly selected. The justices are elected by the unicameral congress and allegations have arisen that the two largest parties divided up the positions between themselves. Constitutional Court president Gloria Porras said on Thursday that the tribunal considers the allegations serious enough to warrant a temporary stay while they are examined. She said it will be several days before a final decision is reached. Current justices will remain in the meantime. Judges who were elected in the vote said at a news conference that the suspension amounted to a technical coup against the judicial system.
MEXICO
3rd arrest in Shabazz death
Police have made a third arrest in last year’s beating death of Malcolm X’s grandson following a dispute over a bar bill, authorities said on Thursday. Mexico City prosecutors said in a statement that suspect Juan Dircio Guzman was detained in Nezahualcoyotl, near the capital. He was expected to appear before a judge to face charges of homicide and robbery. Malcolm Shabazz, the 28-year-old grandson of the assassinated US political activist, was reportedly attacked in the early hours of May 9 last year while with a friend at the Palace bar on Mexico City’s Garibaldi Plaza. Prosecutors said Shabazz was beaten and robbed by bar staff for reportedly refusing to pay a US$1,200 tab. Two waiters were arrested soon after Shabazz’s death. Prosecutors identified Dircio Guzman on Thursday as the bar’s head waiter and said he is also suspected of taking part in the assault.
UNITED STATES
New foreign Oscar bids
Kosovo, Malta, Mauritania and Panama have submitted films for the foreign-language Oscar for the first time, among a record 83 movies under consideration, Academy Award organizers said on Thursday. Kosovan director Isa Qosja’s Three Windows and a Hanging is the young Balkan nation’s first submission for the 87th Academy Awards, to be held on Sunday, Feb. 22, next year, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. Malta is represented by Rebecca Cremona’s Simshar, Mauritania by Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu, and Panama has submitted Invasion, by Abner Benaim. The deadline for submissions was on Wednesday last week.
UNITED STATES
New charges in hacking
US federal prosecutors on Thursday added 11 new charges against a Russian man they say hacked into US businesses to steal credit card information that they say was later sold on the Internet. The new 40-count indictment filed on Thursday paints Roman Seleznev as a leader in the marketplace for stolen credit cards who earned millions of US dollars in illicit profits from the enterprise. Prosecutors say the 30-year-old created a Web site that offered tutorials to other hackers on how to use stolen credit cards to commit a crime. The indictment adds additional wire fraud and hacking charges. Seleznev pleaded not guilty to the earlier charges and is to be arraigned on the latest charges next week. His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the new indictment. His trial is set for Nov. 3. Seleznev also faces racketeering charges in Nevada. He has not made a court appearance there because he is in custody in Seattle, the Nevada US Attorney’s Office has said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema