DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Baldwin mistaken for Trump
Alec Baldwin does a pretty convincing impersonation of US President Donald Trump — just ask a newspaper in the nation. El Nacional published an apology on Saturday after mistakenly running a photograph of the actor doing his impression of the US president on Saturday Night Live instead of Trump himself. Accompanying an article in its Friday edition headlined in Spanish: “Trump says settlements in Israel do not favor peace,” a photograph of a scowling Baldwin in a blond wig appears next to a photograph of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a statement posted on its Web site, the newspaper said a photograph of Baldwin imitating Trump over the caption “Donald Trump, president of the US” — was published on page 19 and the mistake went unnoticed by the newspaper’s staff.
INDIA
Rebels killed in gunbattle
Four suspected rebels and two Indian army soldiers have been killed in a fierce gunbattle in New Delhi-controlled Kashmir, officials said. Police Inspector-General Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gillani said fighting began early on Saturday after police and soldiers cordoned off southern Frisal Village following a tip that militants were hiding in a civilian house. The army said three soldiers were also injured in the fighting. Kashmir is divided between New Delhi and Islamabad. Both governments claim the disputed territory in its entirety.
AUSTRALIA
Militant loses citizenship
An Islamic State fighter has become the first national to be stripped of his citizenship under anti-terrorism laws, authorities and reports said. Khaled Sharrouf — who made headlines in 2014 when he posted an image on Twitter of his young son holding a severed head — had his citizenship revoked earlier this year, the Australian newspaper reported on Saturday. A spokeswoman for the Minister of Immigration Peter Dutton yesterday confirmed to reporters that a person was stripped of their citizenship, but would not provide or confirm further details. Sharrouf is also has Lebanese citizenship, the Australian reported. Sharrouf, reportedly aged 35, left Australia for Syria in 2013 with his family. His wife Tara Nettleton reportedly died last year and Sharrouf was believed to have been killed in a drone strike in Iraq last year. However, later media reports cast doubt on whether he was dead. The fate of their five children is unknown, the newspaper added.
NEW ZEALAND
Whales save themselves
Conservation authorities said 240 pilot whales that were stranded overnight at a remote bay which only days earlier had a larger beaching refloated themselves yesterday and were swimming offshore. “We had 240 whales strand yesterday in the afternoon and we were fearful we were going to end up with 240 dead whales this morning,” Department of Conservation spokesman Herb Christophers said. “But they self-rescued, in other words the tide came in and they were able to float off and swim out to sea.” The pod was the second large group to strand itself in recent days at Golden Bay, at the northwest tip of the South Island, in one of the worst mass strandings in New Zealand. On Thursday evening, a conservation worker spotted that about 400 whales had washed ashore. Hundreds of volunteers spent days pouring water over the beached whales to try and keep them cool, while waiting to catch high tides to carry them out to sea again. However, most of the whales died.
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
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing