SYRIA
IS said to use chemicals
Twenty-two Turkey-backed Syrian rebels were hit by a chemical gas attack from Islamic State (IS) militants in northern Syria, the Turkish army said yesterday. “After a rocket was fired by Daesh [IS], 22 opposition members were observed to have been exposed in their eyes and bodies to chemical gas,” the Turkish general staff said in a statement, quoted by the state-run Anadolu news agency. It said the attack happened in the area of the village of Khaliliya, east of al-Rai in northern Syria. Turkish media said that the affected Syrian fighters were brought over the frontier to the Turkish border town of Kilis by teams from Turkey’s AFAD emergencies agency.
IRAN
Helicopter crash kills five
Five people on board a helicopter were killed when it crashed into the Caspian Sea yesterday, state television reported. The bodies of four crew and a civilian, plus the helicopter, had been found, a security official told state television Web site. The helicopter, owned by the National Iranian Drilling Company, was carrying an emergency patient from Amir Kabir offshore oil platform when it “disappeared half a kilometer from the oil rig on its way back,” ISNA news agency quoted Behshahr Governor Khalegh Sajadi as saying. “The reason of the crash will not be known until the black box is found,” he added.
IRAQ
Shiite militias legalized
Iraq’s parliament on Saturday voted to fully legalize state-sanctioned Shiite militias long accused of abuses against minority Sunnis, adopting a legislation that promoted them to a government force empowered to “deter” security and terror threats facing the country, like the IS group. The legislation, supported by 208 of the chamber’s 327 members, was quickly rejected by Sunni Arab politicians and lawmakers as proof of the “dictatorship” of the country’s Shiite majority and evidence of its failure to honor promises of inclusion.
LIBYA
Eight loyalist troops killed
At least eight members of pro-government forces were killed on Saturday during a fresh offensive on IS group holdouts in the militants’ stronghold of Sirte, a medical source said. Forces supporting the Government of National Accord launched a bid to retake the city from IS six months ago. They quickly seized large chunks of the city, but the offensive slowed amid an effort to avoid losses and to protect civilians still trapped by the militants. The loyalist forces’ press center said on Facebook that IS had carried out two suicide attacks. It added that a woman had opened fire as troops tried to secure an escape for her from a house retaken from the militants.
PUERTO RICO
Pot screenings scrapped
Government agencies would not screen for marijuana on employee drug tests following an executive order by Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla. Applicants seeking public employment would continue to face screening for some drugs. The order targets agencies where current employees are screened for illegal substance use at the discretion of agency directors. The order was signed on Nov. 19, but announced Saturday. In a statement, the Office of the Governor said the move is part of a broader push by the administration to decriminalize personal marijuana use and possession. The governor last year changed Health Department rules to authorize the medical use of marijuana derivatives.
UNITED STATES
Google maps ‘Dump Tower’
Someone has renamed president-elect Donald Trump’s midtown Manhattan building on Google Maps, and the new moniker is not very flattering. Instead of Trump Tower, it is Dump Tower. WPIX-TV reports that users of the mapping service began noticing the new name for the Fifth Avenue building on Saturday and some took to social media to report it. Trump has not yet commented on it. He has been using Trump Tower as his transition headquarters. Google could not be immediately reached for comment.
UNITED STATES
Letters threaten genocide
A civil rights group has called for more police protection of mosques after several in California received letters that praised president-elect Donald Trump and threatened Muslim genocide. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the same handwritten, photocopied letter was last week sent to the Islamic Center of Long Beach, the Islamic Center of Claremont and the Evergreen Islamic Center in San Jose, the Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday. The letter was addressed to “the children of Satan” and it was signed by “American for A Better Way.” “There’s a new sheriff in town — president Donald Trump. He’s going to cleanse America and make it shine again. And, he’s going to start with you Muslims,” the letter says, according to CAIR. “And, he’s going to do to you Muslims what Hitler did to the jews [sic].”
UNITED KINGDOM
Punk rock mementos burned
Piles of punk music memorabilia went up in flames on Saturday on a river barge in London in a protest against the way the once rebellious genre has been subsumed into mainstream culture. Joe Corre, son of former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren and designer Vivienne Westwood, set fire to clothes and paraphernalia he valued at between ￡5 million and ￡10 million (US$6.2 million and US$12.5 million), on the 40th anniversary of the band’s debut single, Anarchy in the UK. Standing in front of flags bearing the names of global corporations, Corre also burnt fireworks-stuffed effigies of British Prime Minister Theresa May and her predecessors David Cameron and Tony Blair, dressed in Sex Pistols clothes.
AUSTRALIA
Rare asthma storm kills six
Six people have died and five remain on life support after a rare condition known as thunderstorm asthma struck Melbourne. The Department of Health says the sixth victim died in a hospital on Saturday night from medical complications stemming from a wild thunderstorm that struck Melbourne on Monday night last week. The statement says five patients remain in intensive care units and three of those are in critical condition.
ITALY
Torrential rains kill two
Heavy rains over the past three days have left at least two people dead and two others are reported missing, media reports said on Saturday. A 73-year-old fisherman died near Genoa in northern Italy while in the neighboring Piemont region rescuers on Saturday found the body of a 70-year-old man who had gone to look for his horses and had been missing since Friday. Two elderly men were also reported missing in the south on the island of Sicily. One of them is a farmer in his sixties in the Agrigente region, where the local union has warned that the storms could lead to the loss of half of the citrus crop.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
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