AUSTRALIA
Victim donates to charity
A boy with dwarfism whose distress from bullying became a viral video is to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to charity rather than a trip to Disneyland. The clip of nine-year-old Quaden Bayles was watched millions of times and prompted US comedian Brad Williams to start a GoFundMe page that eventually raised almost US$475,000. Although the funds were meant to send Bayles and his mom to Disneyland, his aunt told NITV News that the money would be used for charities instead. “What kid wouldn’t want to go to Disneyland, especially if you have lived Quaden’s life,” she was quoted as saying. “But my sister said: ‘You know what, let’s get back to the real issue.’ This little fella has been bullied. How many suicides, black or white, in our society have happened due to bullying. We want the money to go to community organizations that really need it. They know what the money should be spent on.”
BELGIUM
Flight delay claim nixed
Air travelers cannot receive cash compensation if their flight is delayed by a passenger biting others and assaulting crew members, an adviser at the European Court of Justice said on Thursday. Such incidents were “extraordinary circumstances,” advocate general Priit Pikamae wrote in a non-binding opinion, a form of guidance that is normally followed by the court. A traveler flying from Brazil to Norway via Portugal in August 2017 sought 600 euros (U$663) compensation after his flight departed late. The plane had to be diverted to disembark a passenger biting and assaulting crew members, delaying the following outgoing flight. “A passenger biting other passengers and attacking the cabin crew trying to calm him down ... leading to a flight delay, falls under the concept of extraordinary circumstances,” Pikamae said. The court typically follows the opinions of its advocates general.
BELGIUM
Laced wine alert issued
Prosecutors have issued an alert after a woman died after taking a sip of wine from a bottle suspected of being used to transport the drug MDMA. The 41-year-old collapsed shortly after opening the French red to enjoy with a colleague after work. She took a sip from a glass, which left an unpleasant taste, and the intake was enough to give her a fatal dose of MDMA. The unnamed woman, from Puurs near Antwerp, died five days later in hospital. “[She] was 100 percent against drugs... We also do not understand where that bottle came from. She only drank one sip,” her sister told Het Nieuwsblad. Prosecutors in Antwerp confirmed that there was no link between the woman and drug use, and said there was evidence of tampering with the bottle’s cork. Drug traffickers have been known to use wine bottles to conceal drugs during transportation.
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