BERMUDA
Hurricane makes landfall
Hurricane Gonzalo slammed into Bermuda on Friday, knocking out most of the electricity as it lashed the tiny Atlantic island chain with pounding surf, torrential rain and howling wind, but there were no immediate reports of injuries. The strongest storm to sweep the subtropical British territory in a decade made full landfall at about 8:30pm as the 56km-wide eye of the storm crossed the south-central coast of Bermuda, the US National Hurricane Center in Miami reported. The Category 2 hurricane was packing sustained winds of up to 175kph, down from 225kph earlier in the day, but it remained a dangerous storm, forecasters said. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 95km from its center as it bore down on Bermuda. Gonzalo roared ashore just five days after Bermuda, a low-lying archipelago occupying just 54km2 and home to 65,000 people, had been struck by a tropical storm, serving a one-two punch to the islands.
UNITED STATES
Officer ‘feared for his life’
The white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black 18-year-old in a St Louis suburb in August has told investigators that he was pinned in his vehicle and in fear for his life as they struggled over his gun, the New York Times reported. Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson has told authorities that Michael Brown reached for the gun during a scuffle, the Times reported in a story posted on its Web site on Friday night. The Times reported that the account of Wilson’s version of events came from government officials briefed on the federal civil rights investigation into the Aug. 9 shooting that sparked racial unrest and weeks of protests. Wilson confronted Brown and a friend while they were walking back to Brown’s home from a convenience store. Some witnesses have told authorities and news media that Brown had his hands raised when Wilson approached with his weapon and fired repeatedly.
UNITED STATES
Secret space plane lands
A top-secret space plane has landed safely on the Southern California coast. Officials at Vandenberg Air Force Base said the plane, which spent nearly two years orbiting Earth on a classified mission, touched down on Friday morning. The plane, known as the X-37B, resembles a mini space shuttle. Just what the plane was doing has been the subject of speculation. Several experts have theorized it carried a payload of spy gear in its cargo bay. Other theories sound straight out of a James Bond film, including that the spacecraft would be able to capture the satellites of other nations or shadow China’s space lab. The military is not saying.
UNITED STATES
Bear ate dead man: reports
A wild black bear dragged away and ate the body of a Californian man who had died of a suspected heart attack, news reports said. The bear is thought to have come across the body of 65-year-old Marion Lee Williams near his trailer in California’s densely forested and mountainous Humboldt County, the Los Angeles Times said on Friday. “It looks like he collapsed and died,” CBS quoted county deputy coroner Roy Horton as saying. “The bear comes along and sees a potential food source.” The animal dragged his body into a cave to feast on, the newspaper said. Williams, who lived alone and “off the grid,” was last seen on Oct. 8 and authorities discovered his remains on Monday, CBS reported. He is believed to have died at some point in the past week, the LA Times said.
THAILAND
King continues recovery
King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world’s longest-reigning monarch, is continuing his recovery in hospital following surgery to remove his gallbladder earlier this month, the palace said in a statement on Friday. Bhumibol’s health is a subject of keen public concern. Doctors have stopped administering medicine and nutrition intravenously, the information division of His Majesty’s Principal Private Secretary said in the first statement in a week on the king’s health. The king’s temperature, breathing and blood pressure were all normal, the statement said. The 86-year-old king was admitted to a Bangkok hospital late on Oct. 3.
MYANMAR
Former minister sentenced
Former minister of religious affairs Hsan Hsint was sentenced to 13 years in prison on Friday on charges of misappropriation of state funds and sedition, his lawyer said. Hsan Hsint, who was sacked on June 19, was handed a 10-year prison sentence and 100,000 kyat (US$100) fine for sedition, lawyer Tin Tun told reporters, and an additional three-year sentence for a charge of siphoning off state funds worth US$10,000. Tin Tun said prosecutors failed to provide concrete evidence of Hsan Hsint’s guilt. “The allegations are not quite clear,” he said, adding that he would appeal against the ruling at the Mandalay Division high court next week. No information on the case was available from the judiciary. Hsan Hsint’s dismissal followed a police raid on a Buddhist monastery involved in a property dispute. Five monks were arrested during the raid, which caused a public outcry.
DR CONGO
Rebels kill more than 20
Suspected Ugandan rebels killed more than 20 people overnight in their second attack near the eastern Congolese town of Beni in 48 hours, a civic group said yesterday. Violence simmers in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo despite the presence of UN peacekeepers and government troops, who last year defeated an insurgency by M23 rebels that posed the most serious threat to Kinshasa’s authority since the vast central African country’s last war formally ended in 2003. ADF/NALU rebels, who operate in the eastern border zone, targeted the village of Byalos, according to Omar Kavota, spokesman for the Civil Society of North Kivu. “This is a genocide, the way in which the ADF kills these people,” Kavota said by telephone from Beni, which is about 40km south of Byalos. Victims of the attack included one Congolese soldier, eyewitness Justin Kambale said.
FRANCE
Russia to extradite citizen
A French court of appeal has ruled in favor of extraditing to Russia a former finance minister accused of embezzling billions of rubles. The Lyon court said Alexei Kuznetsov should be sent back to Russia on condition that he was not subjected to forced labor, and that he could receive visits from the French authorities. Kuznetsov was arrested close to St Tropez in the summer of last year in possession of passports in five different names. He stands accused by the Russian authorities of embezzling 14 billion rubles (US$343 billion) when he was finance minister for the Moscow region between 2005 and 2008. The money was allegedly laundered in property abroad, including in France. Kuznetsov apparently fled Russia when a business associate was murdered. He then resurfaced in France. Russia later issued an international arrest warrant for him.
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