CHINA
Jailed artist released
An artist who could not be reached for more than a week after he painted a politically charged mural in Shenzhen yesterday wrote on Twitter that he has been freed. “I was released a few days ago and we are in my hometown now,” the Twitter account of painter Hu Jiamin (胡嘉岷) read days after Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao reported that Hu and his French wife, Marine Brossard, had been taken away by plainclothes men. Hu said in another post that he would return to France on Saturday. The couple had painted a mural honoring Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), who died in 2010, at the entrance of a public exhibition in Shenzhen on Dec. 15. City authorities covered the wall with a banner the same evening, witnesses said. Their painting depicted an empty blue chair inside a room with red bars, an apparent reference to Liu.
UNITED STATES
Manure sent to Mnuchin
A gift-wrapped package addressed to Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin’s home in a posh Los Angeles neighborhood that was suspected of being a bomb was instead filled with horse manure, police told local media. The package was found on Saturday evening in a next-door neighbor’s driveway in Bel Air, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) told the Los Angeles Times and KNBC television, the NBC affiliate in Los Angeles. The package also included a Christmas card with negative comments about President Donald Trump and the new tax law signed by Trump last week. Reuters could not reach LAPD officials for comment on Sunday. An LAPD bomb squad X-rayed the package before opening it and found the horse manure inside, police told local media. Mnuchin, who KNBC said was not home when the package was discovered, is a former Goldman Sachs Group executive and Hollywood film financier.
EGYPT
Fifteen arrested over attack
Security officials said that 15 people — 12 Muslims and three Christians — have been arrested in connection with an attack on an unlicensed Christian church south of Cairo. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Hundreds of Muslim demonstrators stormed the church after Friday prayers, according to the local diocese, who said they wrecked some of its fittings while chanting anti-Christian slogans and calling for its demolition. Three Christians were wounded by the attackers. Christians constitute about 10 percent of Egypt’s population.
UNITED KINGDOM
Police probe pork attack
Police in Northern Ireland are treating as a hate crime an incident in which pork was forced through the letterbox of an Islamic center on Christmas Eve. Center treasurer Raied al-Wazzan, the treasurer of the center in Belfast, described those responsible as “ignorant people.” A colleague, Anwar Macady, said that it was the first time the center had been attacked in such a way, and it was sad that it had happened on Christmas Eve. “They’re supposed to be celebrating mercy and forgiveness. I think this man is only representing himself, and a handful of people who may support him,” he said. “We know that this person doesn’t represent the wider society of Northern Ireland and we are very thankful for the people who sent us messages to tell us the message of support.” In August an Islamic center in Newtownards, Co Down, was subjected to a racist attack when a pig’s head was left on its doorstep.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion