PAKISTAN
Woman to appeal execution
A defense lawyer has said the top court would hear the final appeal of a Christian woman who has been on death row since 2010 after being convicted of insulting Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. The Supreme Court is to take up Asia Bibi’s appeal tomorrow, her lawyer, Saiful Malook, said yesterday. Bibi’s first appeal was in 2014 dismissed by the Lahore High Court, but the Supreme Court stayed her execution in 2015.
JAPAN
No flag, no fleet review
The nation on Friday announced that it would not send a warship to an international fleet review hosted by South Korea next week, because it could not accept Seoul’s request that it remove the Japanese navy’s “rising sun” flag. The nation had notified the South Korean government of its decision, Minister of Defense Takeshi Iwaya told reporters. “Unfortunately, we have come to a situation where we have no choice but to pass on our participation in the international fleet review,” Iwaya said. Many South Koreans see the flag as a symbol of Japan’s World War II aggression, and protested its use during the Oct. 10 to 14 event near Jeju Island. South Korea’s navy expressed regret over Japan’s withdrawal, but said it must not affect efforts to improve relations between their naval forces.
UNITED STATES
‘CPR’ saves stunned squirrel
A motionless squirrel apparently stunned by a passing car has been revived by the driver, who performed chest compressions beside a Minnesota road. Police officers on patrol in the suburb of Brooklyn Park thought that the man might be performing CPR. In a police video posted on Facebook, the man tells the officers that he swerved to avoid the animal, adding that he did not believe that he had struck it. In the clip, the man flips the squirrel onto its belly and as he strokes its back, the animal starts to come to, eventually darting away as an officer says: “There he goes! You saved his life, dude!”
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Angry mob kills Chinese
The government has said that three Chinese have been killed and three others wounded in an attack by community members angry about the disappearance of their youth leader. The act would not go unpunished, government spokesman Ange Maxime Kazagui said on Friday, adding that the Chinese were killed by crowds on Thursday while waiting at the gendarmerie as part of an investigation into the disappearance. The youth leader’s brother, Mathurin Dimbele-Nakoe, described the Chinese as employees of a mining company and said they had asked for accompaniment to a mining site on the river. Their boat tipped and the youth leader has not been found.
UNITED KINGDOM
Banksy shreds auction
Girl With Balloon, a painting by the Banksy, was destroyed on Friday at a Sotheby’s auction in London in an apparent prank by the anonymous and mischievous artist. Immediately after the painting had been sold to a phone bidder for £1.04 million (US$1.2 million), part of it was mysteriously shredded, according to Sotheby’s. “We’ve just been Banksy-ed,” Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s European head of contemporary art, said at a news conference following the auction. The Financial Times reported that the painting was shredded by a contraption that seemed to be hidden in the frame. Banksy, who made his reputation as a street artist known for provocative and sometimes politically charged stencils, protects his identity.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the