INDIA
Limited Web for Kashmir
Internet services were partly restored in Indian Kashmir from yesterday, ending a five-and-a half-month blackout in the region, but social media would remain offline, local authorities said. Internet access was to be restored to 301 government-approved Web sites that include international news publications and platforms such as Netflix and Amazon. “Access shall be limited only to the whitelisted sites and not to any social media applications,” the Jammu and Kashmir Home Department said. Mobile phone data access is also being restored, but limited to second-generation connections, the department added.
TURKEY
Erdogan slams Haftar
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday urged international pressure to force the head of Libya’s eastern-based forces to abide by a tentative truce and said that Ankara was determined to continue supporting Libya’s UN-backed government. He made the comments following meetings in Istanbul with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. At a joint news conference with Merkel, Erdogan took aim at General Khalifa Haftar, who leads forces based in eastern Libya that are waging an offensive to take Tripoli. “This man is not trustworthy,” Erdogan said, adding that his government would not abandon Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj.
SYRIA
‘Pound pride’ launched
With the Syrian pound hitting record lows, a nationwide symbolic campaign has been launched by merchants, barbers, supermarkets and even gyms to support it. Under the slogan “Our pound is our pride,” the campaign encourages merchants to sell any staple or service for only 1 Syrian pound (US$0.0019). The one-pound coin has been out of use for years and has no real value, but organizers say it provides a morale boost and a distraction to war-weary residents who have been hit hard by sky-rocketing prices. “This cannot help the Syrian economy, but it is a chance for some people to forget about their troubles and worries,” said Marla Khouri, general director of al-Wadi Hotel in Homs Province. She is offering two days of accommodation for customers for the price of a pound. Khouri said the offer was made basically for low-income customers and in a bid to support the pound.
ISRAEL
Prince Charles visits tomb
Britain’s Prince Charles on Friday paid a visit to the tomb of his grandmother at the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Mary Magdalene just outside Jerusalem’s Old City. Charles was shown around the 19th-century church by Archimandrite Roman Krassovsky, the local head of the Russian Orthodox Church. The prince made no public remarks, but he had paid tribute to his grandmother on Thursday night at the World Holocaust Forum. “I have long drawn inspiration from the selfless actions of my dear grandmother, Princess Alice of Greece, who in 1943, in Nazi-occupied Athens, saved a Jewish family by taking them into her home and hiding them,” he said.
MOROCCO
Alleged watch gang on trial
Fifteen people went on trial in Rabat on Friday over the theft of dozens of luxury watches belonging to King Mohammed VI. The main suspect is a 46-year-old who worked as a cleaning woman in a royal household. The woman is alleged to have stolen 36 watches, and had many of them melted down and sold to gold merchants. The 14 others, all men, are gold traders or intermediaries who said they had no knowledge of the thefts.
GERMANY
Six killed in shooting
Six people on Friday were killed and another two wounded in a shooting in the southwestern town of Rot am See, police said. The suspect’s parents were among the dead and the other victims were also believed to be relatives. A man called police shortly after 12:45pm and told them he had killed several people, regional police chief Reiner Moeller said at a news conference. Police kept the man on the line and, when they arrived at the scene several minutes later, arrested a 26-year-old German national as the suspect in the slayings, Moeller said. Officers found the bodies of six people — three women and three men, aged 36 to 69 — in and behind a building where a bar is located. Another two people were hurt, and one of them has life-threatening injuries, Moeller said.
GERMANY
Car club mulls speed limit
The nation’s biggest car club on Friday said it is shifting its position on the introduction of a general speed limit on the Autobahn to “neutral.” The ADAC, which counts about one in four Germans among its members, said it would refrain from making any recommendations “until further notice” amid growing demands for the nation to pull level with neighboring countries that restrict speeds on their highways. About 70 percent of the nation’s highway network has no speed limit. Proponents say a speed limit of 130kph or less would reduce the risk and severity of accidents, and lower carbon emissions from cars with combustion engines. Opponents say the Autobahn is safe and bigger emissions cuts can be achieved through other means.
IRELAND
Truck driver to be extradited
Dublin High Court Judge Donald Binchy on Friday ruled that a truck driver wanted over the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants found in a refrigerated container near London can be extradited to the UK. Eamonn Harrison, 23, should be sent to Britain to face charges of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people, Binchy said. The bodies were found on Oct. 23 in Grays, England. Police said the 31 men and eight women were all from Vietnam, and were aged between 15 and 44. Binchy said he would defer ordering the extradition until Feb. 4. Harrison’s lawyers said they would read the full judgement before deciding whether to appeal.
NETHERLANDS
Kids appeal for teachers
Parents of children at the Wereldboom elementary school in Amsterdam have responded to a national teacher shortage by making a short video of their offspring asking for candidates to come forward and help make their dreams come true. In the film the children talk about their plans to be a caretaker, pilot, plumber, acrobat or director when they get older. “But that is not possible without a good teacher,” the parents wrote on the school’s Web site. Teaching unions say the teacher shortages is chronic in four out of 10 primary and secondary schools for which they blame poor salaries.
UNITED STATES
BTS mics fetch US$83,200
Seven microphones used on tour by South Korean pop band BTS have sold for US$83,200 at a pre-Grammy Awards auction for charity, more than eight times the expected starting price, Julien’s Auctions said on Friday. The autographed microphones were the first ever items to be sold at auction from BTS, Julien’s said. They were used from 2017 to 2019 on the band’s “Love Yourself” tour. The auction was held to benefit the Recording Academy’s charitable arm, MusiCares.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
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