INDONESIA
Pilots killed in air show
A jet fighter taking part in an aerobatic show crashed and burst into flames yesterday, killing two pilots. No one on the ground was injured. The KAI T-50 Golden Eagle, a US-South Korean-made light attack aircraft, spun out of control and crashed into an air force base complex near Adi Sutjipto Airport in Yogyakarta, a tourist destination city on the main island of Java, according to a witness, Jawardi, who goes by a single name. He spoke to MetroTV. The crash occurred on the second day of an air show celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Air Force Flight School in Yogyakarta, said Air Vice Marshal Dwi Badarmanto, an air force spokesman. The pilot and co-pilot died instantly, and an investigation team has been sent to the crash site, he said. TV showed plumes of black smoke billowing from the wreckage as the plane burst into flames. The trainer aircraft is one of 16 similar models bought by the air force last year.
CHINA
Misbehaving tourists named
The country’s tourism authority is naming and shaming another five tourists for bad behavior and says it is working with airlines on a possible flying ban. They include two women and a man who brawled after one woman’s seat was bumped on a flight from Cambodia to Chengdu, forcing them to be taken off the flight. Another fought with a Japanese convenience store clerk and the last was involved in a dispute over tickets to a western China scenic site. Their names and a description of their alleged misbehavior were entered onto a National Tourism Administration list and are to remain there for up to three years.
PAKISTAN
US warns over attacks
The US embassy in Islamabad said it has received information on possible terrorist attacks in the Pakistani capital late this month, warning Americans to avoid busy public places during the Christmas and New Year holiday period. “Possible targets include places of worship and shopping centers,” the embassy said in a statement, without giving specifics of the information that led it to issue the warning on Friday. Pakistani police and other officials were not available on Saturday to comment on the warning. However, a Pakistani intelligence official said there is a “general threat perception,” but no specific threats. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. US citizens should “minimize the number and duration of trips” to crowded places such as markets, restaurants, hotels and places of worship and other locations where large numbers of people congregate, the warning said. US government personnel are under additional movement restrictions in coming weeks, including religious venues and large shopping centers.
CHINA
Landslide topples buildings
A landslide toppled 22 buildings at Liuxi Industrial Park in Shenzhen about noon yesterday, leaving 22 people missing, with hundreds of rescuers searching for survivors, state media reported. Xinhua news agency said that seven people had been rescued. More than 900 people had been evacuated from the site in Guangming New District before the landslide. A woman who answered the phone at the fire brigade in the district confirmed the incident, but said she had no other information. State media carried photographs of what looked like at least a five-story building leaning over and partly crumpled.
GERMANY
Hitler did have one testicle
A medical document shows that Adolf Hitler only had one testicle, German media said on Saturday, suggesting there is some truth after all to a popular British song that says the dictator had “only got one ball.” There has long been speculation that Hitler was missing one testicle, with rumors circulating that he lost the other one during the Battle of the Somme in World War I. However, a medical record from the time when Hitler was put in prison after the failed Munich Putsch in 1923 shows he suffered from “right-side cryptorchidism” — a condition where a testicle fails to descend into the scrotum — media reports said. The doctor’s notes were thought to have been missing for years, but reappeared at an auction in 2010, at which point they were seized by authorities. “The experienced medical officer immediately recognized the condition,” top-selling newspaper Bild quoted historian Peter Fleischmann, who has studied the record, as saying. Fleischmann could not immediately be reached for comment.
BURKINA FASO
Two journalists jailed
A Burkina Faso media organization says two journalists have been jailed and charged in relation to a short-lived coup in September in the West African country. The Private Print Media Association on Friday said in a statement that Adama Ouedgraogo, from a popular private daily newspaper, and Caroline Yoda, from a private TV station, are being held in a military prison. The two are charged with five counts including complicity to breach state security, complicity to murder, and aggravated assault and battery. The group met with military court officials and lawyers to ask that the journalists’ rights be respected. Lookman Sawadogo, president of Private Print Media Association, said if the arrests merely have to do with their professional activities, the organizations will take a stand.
SPAIN
Firefighters battle 100 blazes
About 230 firefighters were dispatched to battle around 100 wildfires which broke out in northwest Spain on Saturday night, emergency services said, but there were no reports of casualties. “Around 100 fires are currently blazing,” a spokeswoman for firefighters in the Asturias region said. “On the ground we have 230 firefighters” as well as officers from the civil guard, other volunteers and officials, she added. Five homes were affected by forest fires in the northwest of the region and a section of motorway was closed off due to fumes, according to an early statement from the emergency services. “Weather conditions, with higher temperatures and strong gusts of wind, are severely hampering efforts to extinguish these fires,” it said.
GERMANY
Kurt Masur dead at 88
Conductor Kurt Masur, who was credited with helping prevent violence after the collapse of communism in East Germany and later reinvigorated the New York Philharmonic during an 11-year stint as music director, has died at 88. New York Philharmonic president Matthew VanBesien announced his death in a statement on Saturday. “It is with the deepest sadness that I write on behalf of the Masur family and the New York Philharmonic that Kurt Masur — our inspiring music director, 1991-2002, and music director emeritus — passed away” earlier in the day, he said.
UNITED STATES
Bill to stamp for Hillary
Former president Bill Clinton is to start campaigning for presidential candidate hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton in January, she told supporters at a party after the third Democratic presidential debate. “Starting in January, I’ll have my not-so-secret weapon,” she told supporters gathered at Milly’s Tavern in Manchester, New Hampshire. The former president spoke at a rally ahead of the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson dinner in late October, but has otherwise limited his public appearances on his wife’s behalf. This year, he has focused on shoring up the Clinton Foundation’s finances ahead of a more intense schedule of campaigning and, potentially, life in the White House, where, Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday assured a debate audience he would probably not take the traditional role of selecting floral arrangements and china patterns for state dinners. Chelsea Clinton is also slated to start campaigning for her mother next month.
UNITED STATES
Waiter turns over US$32,000
An Applebee’s waiter in central California turned over US$32,000 in cash that a family forgot at a table, an amount that exceeds his annual salary after taxes, because it was the right thing to do, the waiter said on Friday. Brian Geery, 33, said he found a canvas pouch at a table in the restaurant where he works in Fresno after a family finished eating.
UNITED STATES
Motorists’ happy holidays
Sheriff’s deputies in a Georgia community are targeting drivers in need of some cheer and issuing US$100 bills instead of traffic fines in a welcome holiday season surprise. An anonymous donor gave US$5,400 to launch the goodwill drive, said Monroe County Sheriff JC Bittick, whose deputies are passing out the money to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations in a semi-rural area about 97km south of Atlanta.
UNITED STATES
Anger shuts down school
With Americans already on edge after the attacks in Paris and Southern California, a teacher’s lesson on Islam in a Virginia school sparked an angry meeting of outraged parents that mushroomed into a national denunciation of the educator in the form of thousands of angry e-mails and social media postings. As a result, an estimated 10,000 students in Augusta County’s public school system got a one-day jump on the Christmas break as a precaution. The cancellation of classes on Friday also wiped out a holiday concert and weekend sporting events.
CANADA
Son charged with murder
Dennis Oland, the son of a wealthy Canadian brewer, was on Saturday found guilty of murdering his father following a long and sensational trial in the eastern province of New Brunswick. Oland, 47, had been accused of the second-degree murder of his father, Richard Oland, who was part of the locally prominent family that owns Moosehead Breweries. The 69-year-old father was found dead in a pool of blood in his office on July 7, 2011. His body bore numerous stab and blunt-force wounds to the head, neck and hands. Police said his son was the last person to see him alive. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Oland’s family said in a statement that they were stunned by the verdict, adding that all of the relatives were certain that Dennis had nothing to do with his father’s death.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not