THAILAND
Activist to be freed on bail
Lawyers for a student activist detained for campaigning against a military-backed constitution and in the second week of a hunger strike said he was expected to be released on bail last night. The military government prevented opponents from campaigning against the charter before the vote on Aug. 7 and the Election Commission introduced a law criminalizing any such activity. Khon Kaen University student Jatupat Boonpattararaksa was detained on Aug. 6 for handing out “vote no” leaflets. He went on hunger strike after he was detained and faces charges of violating the ban on campaigning.
HONG KONG
Movie poster sparks furor
A poster for upcoming Hollywood movie Arrival mistakenly featuring a Shanghai landmark on the territory’s skyline was yesterday taken down from the film’s official Facebook page after sparking outrage and ridicule.The error sparked a torrent of comments on social media under the hashtags #HongKongisnotChina and #HongKongindependence. Others called for a boycott of the film, due out in November. The poster showed a giant vertical spaceship over Victoria Harbour with the Oriental Pearl Tower, perhaps Shanghai’s best known landmark, prominently featured in the foreground.
AUSTRALIA
Zoo sells primate music
An orangutan living in Adelaide Zoo has created a jazz riff that his keeper hopes will help raise awareness about the plight of the hairy primates. Pij Olijnyk said he was one day showing the 21-year-old Sumatran orangutan named Kluet some photos and videos on his cellphone. Once Kluet had the hang of swiping the screen, Olijnyk introduced him to an app that creates music, saying: “He loved it... He started just riffing away and playing some amazing stuff, and I just thought ‘this is brilliant,’” the keeper said in a video posted on Facebook yesterday. The zoo is selling the 30-second tune, Give me a Klue, and on which Kluet played the drums and piano, to mark world orangutan day, with all funds raised going to help conservation efforts for the animal.
ISRAEL
Army disciplines soldiers
The army on Thursday jailed one soldier and sanctioned two others after they were filmed apparently dropping a stun grenade alongside a group of seated Palestinians. A video posted online on Tuesday showed an army jeep pulling up next to the men, sitting at the roadside in the northern West Bank village of Kafr Laqif. As the jeep pulls away a flash and smoke can be seen in the road and the men scatter, apparently unharmed. A spokesperson told reporters that the sergeant was jailed for 10 days and the other two soldiers were confined to their base for seven days.
UNITED STATES
Call to fire police officers
Chicago’s police superintendent has called for the firing of seven officers for their response to a colleague’s fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald in 2014. Superintendent Eddie Johnson’s decision, announced on Thursday by a Police Department spokesman, comes about two years after Officer Jason Van Dyke fired 16 shots at McDonald, a 17-year-old African-American. The dashboard camera video of the shooting that was released, under pressure, in November last year exposed an entrenched “code of silence” among officers who had sworn to a far different account of the shooting from what the video captured. The seven officers recommended for firing had backed up Van Dyke’s account that McDonald had moved menacingly toward him with a knife, but their story was contradicted by the video of the shooting.
UNITED KINGDOM
London launches Night Tube
All-night services were to begin on the London Underground yesterday, after being delayed for months by a dispute with workers. The Night Tube is seen as a boost for revelers, tourists and shift workers, who on Friday and Saturday nights would be able to travel on the network at any chosen hour. The new service is to begin on the Victoria and Central lines, crossing through the center of London and covering neighborhoods including Notting Hill and Brixton.
UNITED KINGDOM
Nurse faces punishment
A nurse who developed Ebola working in Sierra Leone is facing disciplinary action over allegations she lied about her temperature during health checks on her return. The Nursing and Midwifery Council alleges that Pauline Cafferkey “allowed an incorrect temperature to be recorded” at Heathrow Airport on Dec. 29, 2014, and intended to conceal from Public Health England staff that she had a temperature higher than 38?C. The council on Thursday said that a full hearing on the allegations is scheduled for next month. Cafferkey could lose the right to practice.
GERMANY
Minister favors burqa ban
Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maiziere yesterday came out in favor of a partial burqa ban amid a fierce national debate on integration. “We agree that we reject the burqa, we agree that we want to introduce a legal requirement to show one’s face in places where it is necessary for our society’s coexistence — at the wheel, at public offices, at the registry office, in schools and universities, in the civil service, in court,” he said after a meeting with regional counterparts from his conservative party. De Maiziere told public television that the full face veil “does not belong in our cosmopolitan country... We want to show our faces to each other and that is why we agree that we reject this — the question is how we put this into law.”
ITALY
Extremist imam expelled
The government has expelled a second imam within a week as it seeks to prevent extremist preachers from radicalizing others. Minister of the Interior Angelino Alfano on Thursday announced the expulsion of Khairredine Romdhane Ben Chedli. The 35-year-old Tunisian was recently absolved of terrorism-related charges by the nation’s highest court, but Alfano said his support for extremists rendered him unfit to stay, the ANSA news agency reported. The Ministry of the Interior on Saturday last week announced the expulsion of another imam arrested in the same 2013 sweep as Ben Chedli.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number