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.
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
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
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of