VATICAN
Holy See rebukes cardinal
The Vatican has chastised retired Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen (陳日君), who accused the Holy See of “selling out” to Beijing for reportedly promoting bishops endorsed by the Chinese government. The cardinal suggested in his statement that the pope was not kept informed of actions he does not approve, a charge Vatican spokesman Greg Burke denied on Tuesday. “The pope is in constant contact with his collaborators, in particular in the Secretariat of State, on Chinese issues,” Burke said in a statement, adding that Francis was informed “faithfully and in detail.” However, Burke did not comment on the alleged Vatican requests to the underground bishops.
COSTA RICA
Christian candidate leading
A conservative Christian congressman best known for his opposition to gay rights remains the favorite in next month’s presidential election, a poll released on Tuesday night showed. Fabricio Alvarado, a 43-year-old ex-television host, led in several runoff scenarios in the poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday by OPol Consultores. Election experts say a second round runoff is likely as no candidate is expected to win at least 40 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election. A run-off featuring the top two vote-getters would take place in early April. In a hypothetical match-up against Antonio Alvarez of the National Liberation Party, Alvarado would win with 37 percent support compared with Alvarez’s 34 percent, the poll showed.
UNITED STATES
Helicopter crash kills three
A helicopter on Tuesday crashed into a southern California home shortly after takeoff, killing three people and injuring two others, officials said. The four-seat Robinson R44 went down in a gated community in Newport Beach, about 72km southeast of Los Angeles. Four people were on board the helicopter. One of the killed or injured people was a bystander on the ground outside the house, authorities said. The injured were taken to hospitals, but there was no immediate word on their condition.
UNITED STATES
‘Glee’ star Salling dies
Mark Salling, one of the stars of the Fox musical comedy Glee, has died of a possible suicide at age 35, a few weeks before he was scheduled to be sentenced in Los Angeles on child pornography charges. Salling’s lawyer, Michael Proctor, said the actor died on Tuesday. He did not reveal the cause of death. A law enforcement official not authorized to speak publicly said Salling was found hanging in a riverbed area in the Tujunga neighborhood of Los Angeles. The official said the actor’s death was being investigated as a suicide. Salling pleaded guilty in December to possession of thousands of images of child pornography. He was scheduled to be sentenced on March 7.
ISRAEL
Group fights Lorde boycott
A local legal rights group says it is suing two New Zealanders it credits with convincing pop singer Lorde to cancel her June concert in the nation. Shurat HaDin yesterday said it filed the suit in a Jerusalem court on behalf of three concert ticketholders. The group says the lawsuit intends to give “real consequences to those who selectively target Israel and seek to impose an unjust and illegal boycott against the Jewish state.” The three ticketholders are seeking about US$13,000 in damages. The two New Zealanders — one Jewish, one Palestinian — had appealed to Lorde in an open letter to “join the artistic boycott of Israel.”
AUSTRALIA
Crashed plane off course
A seaplane that crashed in Sydney on New Year’s Eve killing six people, including the CEO of British catering company Compass Group PLC, was off course, but the cause of the crash remains undetermined, investigators said yesterday. In its preliminary report, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said the plane was about 1km off the standard course before the pilot turned the plane sharply right. Shortly afterward, the plane nose-dived into the Hawkesbury River, north of Sydney. The bureau said there was no evidence of a collision or bird strike and there was no sign of any problem with the controls.
AFGHANISTAN
Quake kills child, injures 10
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake yesterday struck the northeast, killing a child and injuring several people in Badakhshan Province as well as in neighboring Pakistan, officials said. The quake struck 270km northeast of Kabul in the Hindu Kush mountains, at a depth of 180km, the European Mediterranean Seismological Center said. A baby girl was killed and 10 people were injured when roofs of mud-walled houses collapsed in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan, district deputy chief Shabbir Megnal said. There were no immediate reports of any serious damage in Afghanistan.
RUSSIA
Bear paw smugglers seized
A group of local and Chinese smugglers were arrested over the weekend near the border with China in possession of a tonne of bear paws as well as tiger, deer and frog parts, an animal protection group said on Tuesday. The smugglers were arrested with 870 of the bear paws “and the remains of at least four Siberian tigers” in their three vehicles, said the Amur Tiger Center. They also had bear teeth, deer tails and penises and other animal parts as well as arms and ammunition and an amount of amber, center said. The smugglers were headed for China when they were stopped near frozen Lake Khanka on the border.
NEW ZEALAND
Over 80 on sunken ferry
More than 80 people were aboard the ferry MV Butiraoi that sank almost two weeks ago in the Pacific Ocean, officials confirmed yesterday, as a senior Kiribati lawmaker called for an independent inquiry into the vessel’s disappearance. A multinational rescue operation is scouring vast swathes of ocean for survivors, but only seven people have been found alive so far and hopes are fading of locating any more. Initial estimates of how many people were on the Butiraoi when it went missing ranged from 35 to more than 100, but officials said the numbers were slowly becoming clearer. “Kiribati authorities have confirmed that about 80 passengers plus crew of likely about five were on the ferry,” Rescue Coordination Centre NZ said in a statement.
AUSTRALIA
Sydney ferry renamed
A Sydney Harbor ferry christened Ferry McFerryface three months ago has been renamed after a political squabble. New South Wales Minister for Transport and Infrastructure Andrew Constance said in November last year that McFerryface came second place in a competition after the now-famous choice, Boaty McBoatface. However, Constance yesterday said that McFerry was only a temporary name to entertain children during the summer and the ferry had been permanently renamed after children’s author May Gibbs. “Over the summer period, we decided ‘let’s have a bit of fun with the kids with Ferry McFerryface’ and now I’ve named the ferry May Gibbs,’’ he said.
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