UNITED KINGDOM
Animals killed in zoo fire
A large fire at London Zoo on Saturday killed an aardvark and four meerkats, while several staff were treated for smoke inhalation. It took 72 firefighters more than three hours to bring the fire under control, after it broke out in the Animal Adventure cafe and spread quickly to an adjacent shop. “Sadly our vets have confirmed the death of our nine-year-old aardvark, Misha. There are also four meerkats still unaccounted for, but we are now presuming these have also died,” a statement from the zoo said.
UNITED STATES
Snowden releases app
The former National Security Agency contractor who exposed government surveillance programs by disclosing classified material in 2013 has a new job: app developer. Edward Snowden in a video message on Friday unveiled a new smartphone app he helped create, called Haven, that aims to protect laptops from physical tampering. Snowden has said it is an open-source tool designed for human rights advocates and other people at risk, and it uses an Android smartphone’s sensors to detect changes in a room. The software was developed with the Freedom of Press Foundation and the Guardian Project.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Christmas flights delayed
Thick fog yesterday disrupted flights at major airports in the country as thousands of foreign residents rushed to travel home for Christmas and the New Year. Dozens of flights were canceled, diverted or delayed at the three main airports in the emirates of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah. At the Dubai airport, one of the busiest in the world, at least 17 flights were canceled, as visibility dropped to just 100m in some areas of the emirate. At least another 100 incoming flights were either diverted to nearby airports or delayed, according to the flight schedule at the airport. Dubai airport is a major transit hub and thousands of tourists are expected to visit the emirates for the end-of-year festivities.
UNITED STATES
Pageant leadership resigns
The top leadership of the Miss America Organization, implicated in an e-mail scandal that targeted past pageant winners for abuse based on their appearance, intellect and sex lives, resigned on Saturday, with the outgoing president apologizing to a winner whose weight he ridiculed. Josh Randle told reporters that his comment responding to an e-mail to his private account about the physical appearance of 2013 winner Mallory Hagan came months before he started working for the organization in 2015. However, he said it was wrong. “I apologize to Mallory for my lapse in judgment,” Randle said on Saturday. “It does not reflect my values or the values I worked to promote at the Miss America Organization.”
TURKEY
Thousands more sacked
The government has sacked 2,756 more people from its public service sector for alleged links to terror groups as it presses ahead with purges launched following last year’s failed military coup. According to two government decrees published yesterday in the Official Gazette, those dismissed in the new wave of purges include 637 military personnel, 360 gendarmerie force members and 150 academics or other university personnel. Turkey blames the July last year coup attempt on US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. About 50,000 people have been arrested and more than 110,000 civil servants have been dismissed for alleged links to Gulen or militant groups since then.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not