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.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
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