INDIA
Police arrest 12 at film fest
Twelve people have been arrested for not standing while the national anthem was being played at an international film festival, police said yesterday. The arrests on Monday follow a ruling by the Supreme Court last month that said the anthem must be played before every film screening in the country, accompanied by a visual of the national flag, and that audiences must stand. The court said the rule was aimed at instilling a sense of patriotism. The 12 people were arrested in two separate incidents at the film festival, said Anil Kumar, inspector of police in Thiruvananthapuram, state capital of Kerala, where the festival is being held. They were released on bail. Volunteers at the International Film Festival of Kerala complained to police that the 12 refused to stand, despite repeated requests, Kumar said.
AUSTRALIA
Davis gets 40-year sentence
A staff member at a nursing home was yesterday sentenced to 40 years in prison for murdering two residents and attempting to murder a third with insulin injections. Garry Steven Davis, 29, was in September convicted by the New South Wales Supreme Court of injecting Gwen Fowler, 83; Ryan Kelly, 80; and Audrey Manuel, 91, at the SummitCare nursing home in Wallsend in October 2013. Manuel survived the injection, but died later of unrelated causes. Justice Robert Allan Hulme yesterday ordered Davis to serve at least 30 years of the 40-year sentence before he can be considered for parole. Hulme said there was no reasonable doubt that Davis injected each victim with an intention to kill, but that his motive remained a mystery. Davis had told police his victims were “not problem residents” and that they were “easy to look after.” Davis’ lawyer, Mark Ramsland, said his client would appeal the convictions.
VENEZUELA
Colombian border sealed
President Nicolas Maduro on Monday ordered the border with Colombia sealed for 72 hours, accusing US-backed “mafias” of conspiring to destabilize his nation’s economy by hoarding bank notes. “I have taken the decision to close the border with Colombia for 72 hours,” he said in a nationally televised address, calling it a “hard,” but “inevitable” choice. The closure came a day after Maduro signed an emergency decree removing Venezuela’s largest bank note, the 100 bolivar bill, from circulation because of what he called a Washington-sponsored plot against his nation’s troubled economy. Maduro said an investigation had found that billions of bolivars, in bills of 100, were stashed away by international mafias, mainly in Colombian cities, but also in Brazil. He said the nation was the victim of a plot to “destabilize” the economy led by a group “contracted by the US Department of the Treasury.” Maduro said authorities had seized 64 million bolivars (US$96,000) from people trying to sneak them back into the nation.
UNITED STATES
Shot UAE man unarmed
Authorities say a United Arab Emirates citizen who fled after causing a crash on the Ohio Turnpike and was fatally shot by police was unarmed. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation confirmed on Monday that the only weapon found at the scene was the Hudson police officer’s gun. Authorities say Officer Ryan Doran shot 26-year-old Saif Nasser Mubarak Alameri in the head during a struggle in a wooded area near the turnpike on Dec. 4. Alameri was a law student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. His death has been ruled a homicide and Doran has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
BRAZIL
Da Silva faces more charges
Federal police have asked prosecutors to charge former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for more crimes in the nation’s widest-ever corruption probe, Globo’s G1 news site reported on Monday. Lula, president from 2003 to 2010 and a possible candidate in the 2018 election, is already a defendant in three criminal probes linked to the so-called Car Wash investigation into large-scale corruption at state-controlled oil company Petrobras. Federal police said he should also be charged for corruption in the acquisition of land for his foundation and the rental of an apartment in the same building where he lives. They allege the expenses were paid by Brazilian engineering firm Odebrecht, G1 said.
GERMANY
Pair really love Christmas
For one couple, putting up the Christmas decorations takes eight long weeks. With about 16,000 baubles needed to be placed on more than 100 Christmas trees, Thomas and Susanne Jeromin’s annual winter wonderland at their house in the small town of Rinteln has become a seasonal labor of love. “We started off with a normal Christmas tree in the living room as you’d expect and then we thought we could put one in the hallway, one in the kitchen, and over the last five years it’s exploded,” Thomas Jeromin said. The Christmas-obsessed couple began decorating the 105m2 of space in their home, 60km southwest of Hannover, in early October, with lights, ornaments and Father Christmas decorations dotted throughout. The Jeromins’ bedroom is the only festive-free zone. “It’s our retreat for when we’ve had enough of Christmas,” Susanne Jeromin said.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
Seven wild Asiatic elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern state of Assam early yesterday, local authorities said. The train driver spotted the herd of about 100 elephants and used the emergency brakes, but the train still hit some of the animals, Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told reporters. Five train coaches and the engine derailed following the impact, but there were no human casualties, Sharma said. Veterinarians carried out autopsies on the dead elephants, which were to be buried later in the day. The accident site
REVENGE: Trump said he had the support of the Syrian government for the strikes, which took place in response to an Islamic State attack on US soldiers last week The US launched large-scale airstrikes on more than 70 targets across Syria, the Pentagon said on Friday, fulfilling US President Donald Trump’s vow to strike back after the killing of two US soldiers. “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.” The US Central Command said that fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapon sites. “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned
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