GERMANY
Town bans fireworks
Refugees in a town in the west of the nation have been banned from setting off fireworks to mark the New Year, partly out of concern that loud blasts could traumatize people who have fled war zones. The town of Arnsberg in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia has issued directives in several languages banning the sale of rockets and firecrackers to residents of refugee shelters, a spokesman told the Neue Westfaelische daily. The Arnsberg fire brigade also recommended that townspeople consider not launching any fireworks “to avoid reawakening memories in people who have fled war and conflict of the horrors that threatened them.”
GERMANY
Crime ring member arrested
Authorities say they have arrested a member of an Italian organized crime group following an investigation of a cocaine-smuggling operation. Investigators in North Rhine-Westphalia state on Tuesday said a 40-year-old Italian man, who was not named, was arrested on Wednesday last week in Gelsenkirchen as he left his hiding place. Investigators say he was a member of the Sacra Corona Unita group, based in southeastern Italy, and will soon be extradited to Italy. The arrest followed an investigation by police in the Italian town of Francavilla Fontana into a group accused of smuggling cocaine and weapons.
ARGENTINA
River reveals armadillo shell
A passer-by on Christmas Day found a 1m-long shell on a riverbank in Argentina which might be from a glyptodont, a giant armadillo, experts said on Tuesday. Jose Antonio Nievas thought the black scaly shell was a dinosaur egg when he saw it lying in the mud, his wife, Reina Coronel, told reporters. Her husband found the shell beside a stream on their farm in Carlos Spegazzini, about 40km south of Buenos Aires. “My husband went out to the car and when he came back he said: ‘Hey, I just found an egg that looks like it came from a dinosaur,’” she said. “We all laughed because we thought it was a joke.” Nievas told television channel Todo Noticias that he found the shell partly covered in mud and started to dig around it. Various experts who saw television pictures of the object said it was likely to be a glyptodont shell. Glyptodonts had big round armored shells and weighed up to a tonne.
BRAZIL
Hot Santas ditch beards
After more than a month sweating in the tropical heat, dozens of Santa Clauses celebrated the end of the season on Monday by shaving or trimming their thick white beards. Dressed in T-shirts and drinking beer or cola, the exhausted men gathered at an Italian restaurant in Rio de Janeiro to ditch their beards after a season of temporary work at shopping malls and hospitals. The men were graduates of the Rio Santa Claus School, which trains aspiring Saint Nicks looking to make some extra cash as the nation struggles through a recession. Scarfing down plates of spaghetti, the Santas sang some final Christmas carols. “They’re getting their strength up by eating some pasta before heading back to the North Pole,” school director Limachen Cherem said. The academy, which Cherem founded 22 years ago, has trained 400 Santas with free classes in singing, theater, diction, body language, gymnastics and make-up. The Santas, who can earn more than US$3,500 in 40 days, then give a percentage of their earnings to the school.
JAPAN
Lottery tickets left to victims
A mystery benefactor has left about 2,000 lottery tickets in an elevator and asked that flood victims get the proceeds from any winning stub, Japanese police said on Tuesday. An elderly woman found the tickets — which would have cost about ¥600,000 (US$4,980) to buy — and notes from the anonymous donor stuffed in a paper bag at the city hall car park elevator in Tochigi, north of Tokyo. This summer the area was devastated by massive floods, which killed seven people and destroyed thousands of homes. “Please give the money to people suffering from the rain disaster if any of these tickets win,” one of the notes said, according to police. The top prize in this year’s annual New Year’s Eve lottery to be drawn today could be about ¥1 billion. Authorities plan to keep the tickets for the next five months to see if anyone steps forward to claim ownership. It was unclear what would happen after that if any of the tickets prove to be a winner.
INDIA
Infosys contractors arrested
Police said on Tuesday that they had arrested two contract workers accused of raping a woman at the premises of technology giant Infosys, in the latest incident of sexual violence to rock the nation. The men, aged in their 20s, filmed the alleged assault, which occurred on Sunday at one of the IT firm’s offices in Pune, Maharashtra state, officers said. “The woman works as a cashier at the canteen and had gone to the washroom in the evening when one of the men assaulted her while the other filmed it,” police spokesman Suresh Bhonsle said. The men also worked in the canteen, as a cleaner and a waiter.
PAKISTAN
Landowner mutilates teen
Police have arrested a powerful landowner and two accomplices for allegedly chopping off the hands of a 17-year-old farmhand whose family had failed to repay a loan of 15,000 rupees (US$150). The incident took place about two months ago in the agricultural district of Hafizabad, about 80km northwest of Lahore. It was only reported to police on Monday after the victim’s family decided to speak out. Landowners wield considerable power in rural Pakistan, practicing a form of feudalism over the farmers in their employ. “Asad Israr-ul-Haq and his two accomplices have chopped off hand of Akram Abu Bakar, 17 years old,” a copy of the police report said. “The victim’s family had borrowed 15,000 rupees from the landlord and they were not able to return it.” Local police station chief Mahmood Butt said the attackers had used a feed chopper to mutilate the teenager.
SPAIN
Man kept in roofless room
Police said on Tuesday that they had detained two people who kept their 59-year-old brother locked up in “inhuman conditions” in a tiny, roofless room adjoining their home. The man, who suffers from mental problems, was discovered naked in a tiny room without a roof in the southern town of Dos Hermanas, on a filthy mattress next to which bottles and buckets were laid out for him to go to the toilet, police said in a statement. Police in the town near Seville made the grisly discovery when they brought his 76-year-old drunk brother back to his home following complaints of disorderly behavior. The man’s 61-year-old sister also lived in the house and said she kept him fed and cleaned, and looked after his 1,000 euro (US$1,100) monthly pension. The man was taken to hospital, while his two siblings were detained, police said.
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
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