UNITED STATES
Microwave mom sentenced
A 34-year-old mother was on Friday sentenced to life in prison in the microwave oven death of her one-month-old daughter. A California judge imposed the 26-years-to-life sentence on Ka Yang. She was convicted of first-degree murder and assault for putting Mirabelle Thao-Lo in the microwave for up to five minutes in 2011. Prosecutors said the child had fatal thermal injuries. Investigators found the infant’s pacifier in the microwave at their Sacramento-area home. Yang’s attorney said her client had an epileptic seizure and did not know what she was doing. She has a history of seizures, but paramedics said she was not disoriented when they arrived. She told investigators she blacked out and awoke to find the baby injured next to a space heater.
MEXICO
Surfers’ bodies sent home
The bodies of two Australian surfers who were murdered on a gang-plagued Mexican road were on Thursday handed to the Australian consulate after authorities identified their remains, officials said. DNA tests conducted with the federal attorney general’s office confirmed that the burned bodies were those of Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman, the Sinaloa state prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
UNITED STATES
Teen held over IS support
A 19-year-old who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group used Twitter to spread its propaganda and had a backpack with ammunition, suggesting he might have been plotting an attack, federal authorities said. Jalil Ibn Ameer Aziz was on Thursday arrested and charged with two counts of attempting to provide material support to terrorists. He had an initial court appearance and is to be held pending a detention and preliminary hearing next week. Court documents said a “go bag” or “tactical-style backpack” found in Aziz’s closet during a Nov. 27 search contained a high-capacity magazine loaded with ammunition, a modified kitchen knife, a thumb drive, a tin filled with medicine and a full face mask similar to those worn by Islamic State militants.
BRAZIL
President cuts ‘Scissorhands’
President Dilma Rousseff on Friday replaced the Minister of Finance dubbed “Scissorhands” for his swingeing spending cuts, after credit raters downgraded the nation to junk status in an economic and political crisis. US-trained Joaquim Levy is to be replaced by current Minister of Planning, Budget and Management Nelson Barbosa, a close ally of Rousseff seen as less free-marketeering in his approach, her office said in a statement. Levy, 54, formerly worked at the IMF and in Brazil earned the nickname “Scissorhands” for tough spending cuts in Latin America’s largest economy.
MEXICO
Cocaine seized at airport
Prosecutors on Friday said that police detained an employee of the Mexico City airport who allegedly tried to smuggle 258kg of cocaine out of the terminal. Federal prosecutors said on Wednesday the ground-operations employee was driving an official pickup truck on the apron of the airport’s baggage area. The federal police stopped the man with five suitcases containing cocaine. Federal security commissioner Renato Sales said he was apparently part of a gang operating at the airport. “This is not an isolated case, it is indeed an organization that we are investigating one airline in particular,” Sales said.
SWEDEN
FB fans spare some bacon
A pig that escaped from a Swedish abattoir to avoid ending up on a Christmas dinner plate won a stay on execution from its owner after an outpouring of solidarity on social media. Determined to save its skin, the 110kg sow took to its trotters on Monday in Mjallby, a village in Sweden’s southern farming heartland. On Friday, the farmer caught up with the fugitive, who was in fine fettle after her romp through the countryside. “She’s in great form, she must have stuffed herself with rotten fruit and other good things,” the farmer, whose name was withheld, told SVT public broadcaster. Moved by the hog’s flight, animal rights groups launched a Facebook campaign calling on the farmer to spare her from the slaughterhouse. After 2,500 people signed the petition the farmer relented to let her live. “Such a commotion! I’ve decided to let her live until further notice,” he said.
RWANDA
Voters support change
People across the country have voted to change the constitution to allow President Paul Kagame to potentially rule until 2034, according to partial referendum results, election officials said yesterday. “We have seen the will of the people. It’s clear that what the people want, they can achieve,” said National Electoral Commission chief Kalisa Mbanda, unveiling preliminary results from some 70 percent of the country and announcing a ‘yes’ vote of 98.1 percent. “They called for the change of the constitution and they have made it,” he said, according to the pro-government New Times newspaper. Kagame, 58, could now be in power potentially for another 17 years.
NIGERIA
Islamist threat emerges
The risk of a new Islamist threat has emerged after violent clashes between the army and a radical Shiite group, experts say. Though no official death toll has been released, at least a dozen members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) were killed in confrontations with the army during a religious procession last week in the northern city of Zaria. IMN leader Ibrahim Zakzaky was seriously wounded and arrested by the army while his No. 2 was killed during the clashes. The military was forced to put out a denial after rumors spread that Zakzaky’s wife died in custody. The violence mirrors the bloody beginning of the Boko Haram insurrection in 2009, when the former leader of the Sunni militant group was executed in police custody and the sect took up arms against the Nigerian government.
KENYA
Cholera epidemic spreads
A cholera epidemic that has been spreading through the country for more than a year is threatening Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp complex, situated near the Somalia border, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders reported on Friday. It said that more than 540 Dadaab residents have been infected with cholera, a debilitating and often fatal bacterial disease spread by human waste in drinking water. Many of the patients are children. The threat has been amplified because of international aid cuts to Dadaab that have led to shortages of latrines and soap. The charity said that with the onset of the rainy season, the epidemic could spread further. “The fact that this outbreak has occurred further highlights the dire hygiene and living conditions in the camp and lack of proper long-term investment in sanitation services,” Charles Gaudry, the charity’s head of mission in Kenya, said in statement.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese