GREECE
General strike starts
The nation was yesterday hit by a general strike against an unpopular pension overhaul that has rallied workers against the embattled government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The 24-hour labor action deprived the country of train and ferry services and sidelined dozens of flights. Hospitals were to operate on emergency footing, gas stations were closed and taxis were pulled off the streets. Lawyers and farmers also participated in the walkout.
UNITED STATES
Bill Cosby case to proceed
A judge on Wednesday refused to throw out the sexual-assault case against Bill Cosby, sweeping aside a former district attorney’s claim that he granted the comedian immunity from prosecution a decade ago. Common Pleas Judge Steven O’Neill issued the ruling after a hard-fought two-day hearing in Norristown, Pennsylvania, saying witness credibility was a factor. He did not elaborate. In another setback for the defense, the judge also denied a request to disqualify newly elected Norristown District Attorney Kevin Steele from the case. Cosby’s lawyers had accused Steele of making a “political football” out of Cosby during the campaign. Cosby, 78, was arrested in December last year and charged with drugging and violating former Temple University athletic department employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.
UNITED KINGDOM
Architect Hadid honored
Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid was awarded the Royal Gold Medal on Wednesday, becoming the first individual woman to win the award. Known for works including the Guangzhou Opera House in China and the London Aquatics Centre, Hadid was presented the medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects after her selection was personally approved by Queen Elizabeth II. “I am very proud to be awarded the Royal Gold Medal, in particular, to be the first woman to receive the honor in her own right,” Hadid said. “We now see more established female architects all the time. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Sometimes the challenges are immense. There has been tremendous change over recent years and we will continue this progress.”
RUSSIA
Pussy Riot release video
The punk protest group Pussy Riot sashayed back into the public eye on Wednesday with the release of a music video savaging Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, who locked up three members of the group in 2012. Wearing police uniforms and fishnet stockings, they whip hooded prisoners and waterboard them in their prison cells. The well-made-up women gleefully throw wads of cash into the air and flirt viciously with their viewers. The women, playing prison guards, rap lustily about money and torture a man with hot clothes irons. One wears a bird mask, a reference to Chaika, whose name means “sea gull.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Missing lord declared dead
A judge on Wednesday declared the infamous Lord Lucan officially dead, four decades after he disappeared following the murder of the family’s nanny in a lurid tale that has gripped the nation. Lucan’s son, George Bingham, launched a High Court bid to obtain a death certificate for his father last year. Mystery has shrouded the whereabouts of Richard John Bingham, the seventh earl of Lucan, since he vanished at the age of 39 after his children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, was bludgeoned to death in 1974 at the London home of Lucan’s estranged wife.
CHINA
Pilots told to avoid vices
Airline pilots have been warned to steer clear of prostitutes, gambling and drink ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, part of a campaign to strengthen the nation’s air safety record. Praising pilots for flying 8.46 million hours last year, the China Airline Pilots’ Association said in an open letter on an aviation Web site on Wednesday that “very few” pilots were selfish or hedonistic. However, some pilots were involved with prostitutes, gambling, drunk-driving and smuggling, it said, adding that such behavior “severely challenges legal and moral bottom lines.”
CHINA
Ex-police chief charged
A former regional police chief has been charged with murder, bribery and possession of firearms and explosives, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate said in a statement, with his victim reportedly a girlfriend more than three decades his junior. Zhao Liping (趙黎平), 64, headed the police in Inner Mongolia for seven years until he retired in 2012, and was also a deputy head of the northern region’s government. He was detained last year in Chifeng on suspicion of killing a 28-year-old woman with whom he “had an intimate relationship” because she wanted to expose his wrongdoings, media reports said earlier.
NEW ZEALAND
Malaysian officer gets jail
A Malaysian military officer whose legal case prompted outrage after he left the country under the protection of diplomatic immunity was yesterday sentenced to nine months of home detention after pleading guilty to indecent assault. Judge David Collins said Muhammad Rizalman Ismail would serve the sentence in a Wellington rental home before being deported back to Malaysia. Rizalman was arrested in May 2014 after he broke into the home of a 21-year-old woman, entered her bedroom wearing nothing but a shirt and struggled with her before she escaped and called police. He returned to Malaysia after under diplomatic protection. He was extradited in November 2014.
INDIA
Mob attacks foreign student
Police yesterday arrested five people over an enraged mob’s attack on a Tanzanian student who was beaten, her shirt ripped off and car set ablaze in the city of Bengaluru. Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj branded the attack “shameful” and demanded swift justice for those responsible. The mob attacked the 21-year-old and her male friends on Sunday night in apparent revenge for a road accident in which a Sudanese driver ran over a local woman who died. The student said in a complaint lodged with police on Wednesday that the mob attacked her car as they drove near the scene of the accident less than an hour later. “My friends and I hopped onto a bus. The driver didn’t move and the other passengers threw us out. A passerby who also offered me his T-shirt was also thrashed,” she said.
THAILAND
Foreign card players nabbed
A vow by the ruling junta to rid the country of foreign criminals has netted an unlikely group of outlaws: elderly bridge players. Police and military volunteers raided a bridge club on Wednesday night in Pattaya, arresting 32 foreigners, most of them British. Pattaya police superintendent Colonel Suthat Pumphanmuang yesterday said the raid was sparked by a public complaint to the anti-corruption center. Suthat said all but one of those arrested were freed on a 5,000 baht (US$140) bail after 12 hours in custody. The final person was unable to pay bail and remains in jail.
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