IRAQ
Bombing of Tal Afar starts
Iraq has begun an aerial bombardment of Tal Afar, a town under control of the Islamic State group, west of Mosul, Baghdad-based al-Sumariya TV said yesterday, citing an Iraqi Ministry of Defense spokesman Mohammed al-Khodari. The ground attack to try to take the city should start when the air campaign is over, al-Khodari said. Authorities had said Tal Afar, 80km west of Mosul, would be the next target in the war against the Islamist militant group that swept through swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
SOUTH AFRICA
Ostriches have bird flu
The nation’s Western Cape has detected type H5N8 bird flu on two ostrich farms, the province’s Department of Agriculture said yesterday. The virus is highly pathogenic in birds, but considered unlikely to infect humans. “Both farms were placed under quarantine immediately and no birds are allowed to enter or leave the affected properties. There are around 1,000 ostriches on both farms,” the department said in a statement. No bird deaths have been reported in the area and it is suspected that wild birds are the source of the infection, the department added.
NEW ZEALAND
Feud erupts with Australia
Like squabbling siblings, New Zealand and Australia have close ties, but also a rivalry that can sometimes turn ugly. That tension spilled into politics yesterday, when Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop accused New Zealand’s opposition Labour Party of conspiring to undermine her government, a claim New Zealand lawmakers said is “false” and “utter nonsense.” The unlikely dispute involves Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce. Joyce on Monday said he had been advised he was a New Zealand citizen and an Australian court was being asked to determine if he should be dismissed from parliament. Bishop said Australia’s opposition Labor Party used their New Zealand counterparts to raise questions about Joyce in the New Zealand parliament.
PHILIPPINES
Scores killed in drugs ‘war’
Police said simultaneous anti-drug operations in a northern province have left 21 alleged drug offenders dead. It is the highest death toll in a single day since President Rodrigo Duterte launched his “war on drugs” in July last year, officials said. Senior Superintendent Romeo Caramat Jr yesterday said that operations in Bulacan province in the past 24 hours left 21 dead and 64 others arrested. Police said the suspects had offered armed resistance against arresting officers. Police records show since the crackdown started, 3,264 alleged drug offenders have been killed in gunbattles with law enforcers.
SINGAPORE
Man wins bad reference suit
A court has awarded a man S$4 million (US$2.93 million) in compensation after an unflattering reference from his former employer, AXA Life Insurance Singapore, cost him an opportunity to work elsewhere. Ramesh Krishnan, who worked with the insurance company as an adviser and agent from 2005 until 2011, won an appeal in July last year against a 2012 High Court decision, which dismissed his defamation and negligence suit against his former employer. The Court of Appeal last year deemed the reference “incomplete, misleading and unfair” and said AXA’s allusion to Krishnan’s low client persistency ratio, a gauge of insurance business retention, did not provide sufficient information on how this ratio was calculated.
GERMANY
Defrauding IS a crime
A district court in Saarbruecken has found a Syrian refugee guilty of attempting to defraud the Islamic State (IS) group, a court spokeswoman said on Monday, granting legal protection to the group. A judge sentenced the 39-year old hairdresser from Damascus to two years in prison for trying to get IS operatives to transfer him up to 180,000 euros (US$212,400). The judge ruled that the man used the false pretense that he would carry out attacks for Islamic State using explosives. The money was never transferred to the man. The court rejected the prosecution’s argument that the man was guilty of the more serious crime of planning to carry out attacks on behalf of the group. Both parties have appealed the ruling to the Federal Supreme Court.
UNITED STATES
Holocaust panel vandalized
The New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, Massachusetts, has been vandalized for the second time this summer. Police said a 17-year-old Malden boy smashed a glass panel on the memorial on Monday evening. He was detained by two bystanders until officers arrived on the scene. Police said he will be charged with willful and malicious destruction of property. The six glass towers are lit internally and etched with millions of numbers that represent tattoos on the arms of many Jews sent to Nazi death camps.
CANADA
Stunt driver dies
A motorcycle stunt driver died on Monday during production of Deadpool 2 outside the Vancouver Convention Centre. The stunt woman had been riding the motorcycle down a set of stairs from the center when she appeared to lose control of the motorbike, which drove off the set and through the window of a building across the street. Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds said in a message on his social media platforms that actors and crew were “heartbroken, shocked and devastated” at their colleague’s death. The woman’s name has not been released.
UNITED STATES
Swift wins groping lawsuit
Singer Taylor Swift on Monday won a sexual assault lawsuit against a former radio DJ she accused of groping her. A jury in Denver, Colorado, federal court deliberated for four hours before allowing her complaint that David Mueller had fondled her buttocks during a photo opportunity in 2013. Swift was awarded the nominal US$1 in damages she had sought. She issued a statement thanking the court and acknowledging her legal team for “fighting for me and anyone who feels silenced by a sexual assault.” Swift’s aides complained to the DJ’s radio station of the incident and he lost his job. Mueller sued Swift for US$3 million in 2015 for loss of earnings, while she counter-sued for sexual assault.
UNITED STATES
Niagara Falls water probed
The Niagara Falls Water Board says it has hired an engineering firm to evaluate a black, smelly discharge below the falls. The board on Monday said that it has retained Los Angeles-based AECOM to analyze details leading to the July 29 discharge of black water from its wastewater plant. The discharge turned the Niagara River black on a sunny day when the area was crowded with tourists. Media coverage showed aerial images of the inky discharge clouding the US side of the river bank. State officials are investigating what led to the discharge, while Niagara County lawmakers are seeking a criminal investigation by several agencies.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in