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.
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
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing