AUSTRALIA
Cadbury mixes Vegemite
Confectionery-maker Cadbury on Friday said it has created a new taste sensation by combining its well-loved milk chocolate with an unusual flavor — the country’s famous, sharply savory spread Vegemite. Cadbury Australia said the new product was “surprisingly delicious” and one of four new flavor combinations to hit the shelves in coming weeks — along with pretzel and peanut, salted caramel and golden toffee. The company said it believed the new flavor, which combines chocolate and smooth flowing caramel with Vegemite, a paste based on yeast extract, would give Australians “something new and unexpected.” “We’re sure it will stimulate Australians’ flavor curiosity so we encourage everyone to give the block a try while they can,” it said in a statement on the products, which will be only be available for a limited time.
PHILIPPINES
Would-be kidnappers killed
Five militants were killed in a failed kidnapping as the family of the victim fought back, the military said on Thursday. The Abu Sayyaf attackers were shot in a sea battle with the victim’s family on Wednesday after they grabbed the local businesswoman and dragged her to their boat, provincial military chief Colonel Alan Arrojado said. The family was at their seaside home at the time of the incident, but had armed themselves with guns given the high crime rates in many areas in the south, Arrojado said. The military official said the victim had been wounded in the gunfire. He said local fishermen found the 48-year-old clinging on to a floating log with gunshot wounds to her breast and ankle. She is now being treated in hospital. He gave no details about the whereabouts of the other two kidnappers.
NETHERLANDS
‘King insulter’ faces jail
A protester who shouted an obscenity about the king could face up to five years in prison and a fine of more than 20,000 euros under a 19th-century law against insulting the monarch, prosecutors said on Thursday. Anti-racism activist Abulkasim al-Jaberi was detained in December last year while demonstrating against a centuries-old Dutch Christmas parade at which black-faced helpers called “Zwarte Piet” (Black Pete) assist Santa Claus. Critics of the custom denounce the use of blackface as racist. Prosecution spokesman Franklin Wattimena said that al-Jaberi, a Dutch-Iraqi journalist, had been summoned to appear in court on May 27 after failing to pay a 500 euro (US$562) fine. He could be thrown behind bars under a law dating back to 1881 against “insulting the king,” Wattimena said. The law is enforced about once a year.
TURKEY
Cat torturer jailed
A student has been jailed for three years after he filmed himself torturing a cat to death, reports said on Thursday, in a legal first in the country for the deadly abuse of domestic animals. Mustafa Can Aksoy, 21, filmed himself last year killing the cat with knife cuts and blows to the head in the western city of Eskisehir, the Hurriyet daily reported. He was found guilty by a court in the city on Wednesday of needlessly killing the animal and sentenced to three years in jail, it said. His lawyers said they planned to appeal. The cat called Iletki belonged to a local cafe called “Cafe de Cat,” whose owners were among the plaintiffs against Aksoy. Details of the crime emerged when the footage surfaced on the Internet. “I admit my guilt. I regret what happened. I was not always the kind that kills an animal,” Aksoy was quoted as telling the court.
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,
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the