HONG KONG
Bannon talk closed to media
Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon yesterday spoke at a Hong Kong conference, but reporters were barred from listening to the media man. Reporters were not allowed to attend the almost hour-long session at the CLSA investor forum, an e-mail from firm spokeswoman Simone Wheeler said. Wheeler had said on Monday that media would be allowed to monitor Bannon’s comments via a live feed, with a subsequent moderated question-and-answer session off-limits to the media. Those plans “could change,” she said at the time.
YEMEN
Airstrikes kill children: group
An international rights group says the Saudi-led coalition waging an air campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the north are killing children in what amounts to war crimes. Human Rights Watch released a study yesterday documenting the deaths of 26 children killed in five airstrikes since June. The group said that despite promises by the coalition to abide by international law, the airstrikes have failed to do that and urged the UN to again place the coalition on its “list of shame.” The group also called for an international investigation into possible war crimes. The UN’s annual report showed that 785 children were killed and more than 1,000 others wounded in Yemen in 2015, with 60 percent of the casualties caused by coalition airstrikes.
TURKEY
Warrants issued for ex-agents
Authorities have issued detention warrants for 63 people, mostly former intelligence agency workers, for alleged ties to the US-based Muslim cleric accused of masterminding last year’s failed coup attempt, the state-run Anadolu Agency news agency said. Warrants were issued yesterday for 45 former employees of the National Intelligence Agency, MIT and 18 others suspected of being operatives of the cleric, Fethullah Gulen, Anadolu said. Anadolu said that nine of the suspects have been detained in Ankara.
DENMARK
Airport cleared over odd bag
Police early yesterday evacuated and blocked off a terminal at Copenhagen Airport as they investigated a suspicious piece of luggage, police and airport officials said. “Terminal 2 is closed until further notice — police are investigating odd size luggage,” the airport wrote on Twitter. Airport spokesman Morten Bro said “there has been an incident,” without elaborating. Police meanwhile tweeted: “Police working at Copenhagen Airport and terminal 2 is blocked off, which can lead to traffic problems.” The Terminal was reopened two hours later. Neither police nor airport officials provided further information.
BELGIUM
Mayor murdered in cemetery
Media yesterday said a teenager is suspected of killing a city mayor in a cemetery overnight by slashing his throat. State broadcaster RTBF, citing the crown prosecutor’s office, said that Alfred Gadenne, the mayor of Mouscron in western Belgium, was found dead in the cemetery near his home. It said the suspect, an 18-year-old man, apparently acted for personal reasons, without providing further details. RTBF said that Gadenne, 71, was a popular mayor who personally opened and closed the graveyard each morning and night. Prime Minister Charles Michel said in a tweet that he had learned with “dread of the brutal death of Alfred Gadenne. All my thoughts are with his family and loved ones.”
UNITED STATES
‘Pinocchio’ animator dies
Xavier “X” Atencio, an animator behind early Disney movies including Pinocchio and Fantasia, as well as the “imagineer” behind beloved Disneyland rides like “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “The Haunted Mansion,” has died at age 98. Disneyland spokeswoman Suzi Brown confirmed a company statement saying that Atencio died on Sunday. No cause or place of death were given, but Atencio lived and worked in the Los Angeles area most of his life. Atencio’s drawings on Pinocchio helped give Disney its permanent identity in film and culture. His contributions to “Pirates” included the words to the Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me) song that is sung throughout the ride and by parkgoers for days after. He was born Francis Xavier Atencio in Walsenburg, Colorado. Friends in his youth called him just “X,” the name he was known by the rest of his life. He was still a teenager with a gift for drawing in 1938 when he began working for Disney, a company that was even younger than he was and had just one feature film — 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs — to its name.
UNITED STATES
Cold pizza prompts inquiry
Some New York City foodies say a neighborhood pizza festival has left them with a bad taste in their mouths. Prosecutors are looking into the New York City Pizza Festival after attendees fumed they paid US$75 each to eat cold slivers of pizza in a parking lot in Brooklyn on Saturday. The festival was promoted as a celebration of pizza. Attendees said on Facebook that they instead got cold slices of pizza “smaller than a sample size,” served with glasses of warm wine. A spokesman said that prosecutors opened an investigation on Monday. Festival organizer Ishmael Osekre said that event producer Hangry Garden delayed the event. The event producer said it was misled by the organizer and was not paid.
UNITED STATES
Teens seek climate action
A group of Alaska teenagers has sent a petition to the state Department of Environmental Conservation in hopes of tightening climate change policy. Alaska’s Energy Desk on Monday reported that the teens’ petition calls for the state to reduce carbon emissions, monitor what greenhouse gasses it does emit and come up with a strategy for the future. The group, named Alaska Youth for Environmental Action, delivered the petition last month.
SAINT MARTIN
People struggle after Irma
Hundreds of people across an island shared by Dutch St Maarten and French St Martin are trying to rebuild the lives they had before Hurricane Irma hit. Help was making it to the island from the Dutch and French governments, other nations and private organizations. A French military ship with supplies was to arrive yesterday, coinciding with a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron.
GUAM
Help for homeless sought
The government is asking owners of apartment buildings to submit bids to provide temporary shelter to homeless people on the island. The Pacific Daily News on Monday reported that the government is interested in finding out how many private businesses would lease an apartment complex with a minimum of 15 units to serve as a temporary shelter at night. Housing Corp president Christopher Duenas said the ballpark figure for the project is between US$250,000 and US$300,000.
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
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema