NEPAL
Police break up protest
Police yesterday broke up demonstrations and arrested protesters who were demanding the release of the former crown prince Paras Shah, who was detained for questioning after he fired a gun into the air following an argument. Police official Babukaji Giri said about 150 protesters gathered in Kathmandu and 17 were detained for attempting to attack police officers and vehicles and for blocking traffic. Meanwhile, 500 protesters also imposed a general strike in two districts in the south, blocking highways and forcing markets and schools to shut down, Giri said. Shah was taken in for questioning on Tuesday about the firing incident that followed an argument on Saturday night with two guests at a restaurant in Chitwan. Shah has admitted firing his gun, but defended his action, saying he could not bear to hear insults against his family and country.
SOUTH KOREA
Runaway bear captured
A young bear that bolted from a zoo on the outskirts of Seoul has been captured on a nearby mountain after nine days on the run, zoo officials said yesterday. The six-year-old Malaysian black bear nicknamed “KKoma” (Kid) escaped from Seoul Zoo at Gwacheon on Dec. 6 and was sighted on a mountain about 6km away. Kkoma was found yesterday in a trap placed at the mountain summit and appeared to be in good shape, a zoo spokesman told Yonhap news agency. Zoo officials said they plan to move KKoma back to its cage after giving it a medical check-up. Plans to anesthetize the 30kg male bear so he can be moved more easily have, however, hit a snag: The weather on the mountain is cold enough to freeze the liquid.
JAPAN
‘Extinct’ salmon found
A salmon species thought to be extinct for 70 years is alive and well in a lake near Mount Fuji, Kyoto University science professor Tetsuji Nakabo said yesterday. The black kokanee, or kunimasu in Japanese, was thought to have died out in 1940, when a hydroelectric project made its native lake in Akita Prefecture more acidic. Before then, 100,000 eggs were reportedly transported to Lake Saiko, but the species was still thought to have died off. Nakabo said his team of researchers found the species in Lake Saiko, about 500km south of the native lake. He posed for pictures and video with a specimen that was dark olive with black spots on its back. The kunimasu grow to about 30cm in length. Nakabo said the lake had enough kunimasu for the species to survive if the current environment is maintained, though he said in interviews he hoped fishermen would not catch it.
UNITED STATES
Naked postman nabbed
A postal carrier says he simply wanted to cheer up a woman on his rounds who seemed “stressed out” when he decided to deliver mail in the buff. A police report says the 52-year-old man told the woman he would deliver the mail in the nude to her office in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, to make her laugh. The report says that on Dec. 4 he brought the mail wearing only a smile. The mail carrier was arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior several days later. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says the man admitted delivering the mail naked was a stupid thing to do.
UNITED KINGDOM
Fireman admits siren death
A fireman has admitted causing the death of a farmer who was crushed to death by his herd of cows after they were startled by fire engine sirens. Julian Lawford pleaded guilty at Exeter Crown Court to a charge of causing the death of Harold Lee by careless driving, the Press Association reported on Tuesday. Lee, 75, was trampled to death by his cows as he walked them along a country road near his home in Burtle, Somerset. Lawford, 49, was due to stand trial accused of manslaughter by gross negligence but admitted the lesser charge, which was accepted by the prosecution.
ARGENTINA
Archbishop slams Santa
A Roman Catholic archbishop surprised his parishioners by telling the children that Santa Claus was not real, but instead a commercialized symbol of Christmas. “That’s not Christmas,” Archbishop Fabriciano Sigampa of the city of Resistencia said in mass, insisting that children should not confuse celebrating the birth of Christ “with a fat man dressed in red.” Sigampa’s ire was aroused by plans for a snow covered cabin in the city’s main square where a Father Christmas figure would hear children’s wishes and receive donated toys to be given out to poor children. “Surely, in the coming days there will be a deluge of advertisements after they inaugurate the house where a fat man dressed in red lives. And we should not confuse ... Christmas with that.” Sigampa has attracted controversy before. In the 1990s, he caused a stir by ordering a mural for a cathedral that showed the Virgin Mary with then president Carlos Menem and members of the Catholic hierarchy.
RUSSIA
Uniform hospitalizes troops
Sharp new military uniforms, created by a top fashion designer, have landed hundreds in hospital after proving too thin to withstand ferocious winter cold, a state daily said yesterday. Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that between 60 and 250 servicemen have been laid up with everything from flu to pneumonia as Arctic chills sweep through the country’s northern reaches. “They literally felt naked outside,” the paper quoted the mother of one solider as saying. “Many of them ended up in hospital. Ours developed pneumonia,” she said of her son. The government daily said defense officials have admitted not receiving complaints about the uniforms in time to do anything ahead of the winter season. Introduced in 2008, the parade uniforms designed by fashion celebrity Valentin Yudashkin are threaded with gold and more shapely and chic, in a throwback to the uniforms of the imperial Tsarist army. The field versions, meanwhile, are lighter and come with thinner but more mobile boots.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
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