ISRAEL
Nation joins CERN
Israel has become an associate member of the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN), opening the way for full membership in 2013, a foreign ministry spokesman said yesterday. “The association agreement, valid for two years, was signed on Friday by the director-general of CERN, Rolf Heuer, and the ambassador of Israel to the United Nations agencies in Geneva Aharon Leshno-Yaar,” spokesman Jonathan Rosenzweig said. Israel previously held special observer status at the organization, which is best known for its “atom-smasher,” the so-called Large Hadron Collider, which lies in a tunnel straddling the French-Swiss border.
UNITED KINGDOM
Gay marriage mulled
The government has drawn up plans to introduce same-sex civil marriages before the next election in 2015, Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone said on Saturday. “I am delighted to announce today that in March, this government will begin a formal consultation on how to implement equal civil marriage for same-sex couples,” she told her Liberal Democrat party’s annual conference in Birmingham Civil partnerships for same-sex couples were introduced in Britain in December 2005, giving them similar rights to married heterosexual couples. However, the partnerships cannot legally be referred to as marriages.
TANZANIA
Charges filed in boat deaths
Four people have been charged with negligence over last week’s boat accident off the tourist haven of Zanzibar which killed 203 people, a prosecutor said on Saturday. Boat captain Said Adallah Kinyanyite, who is still at large, his assistant Abdallah Mohamed Ali, one of the boat owners Yusuf Suleiman and Silima Nyange Silima, a Zanzibar port official were charged on Friday. Zanzibar prosecutor Ramadhan Nassib said they were charged with “causing death by negligence.” The suspects will reappear in court today. The MV Spice Islander capsized early on Saturday last week, but rescuers saved 619 passengers of the more than 800 on the severely overloaded boat.
DENMARK
Royal couple go down under
Crown Prince Frederik and his Australian-born wife, Crown Princess Mary, are to return to her homeland in November for their first official visit in six years, the Australian government said yesterday. The Danish royals will visit Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra during their tour from Nov. 19 to 26, which Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said would be hosted by the government. “I look forward to welcoming the Crown Prince and Princess to Australia,” Gillard said in a statement. “This is their first official visit to Australia since 2005.” Since then, the pair have been to Australia twice in a private capacity. US President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit earlier the same week.
UNITED STATES
Air show death toll raised
Reno police say a total of nine people died in the crash of a World War II-era plane during an air race. The deaths include seven who were killed on the tarmac, including the pilot, and two others who died at hospitals. The new death toll was announced at a briefing with local and federal investigators. Investigators say they are examining the site, gathering information and are encouraged by the large number of photos and videos available to them. They have not speculated on a cause but organizers pointed to a possible mechanical failure.
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
China’s military news agency yesterday warned that Japanese militarism is infiltrating society through series such as Pokemon and Detective Conan, after recent controversies involving events at sensitive sites. In recent days, anime conventions throughout China have reportedly banned participants from dressing as characters from Pokemon or Detective Conan and prohibited sales of related products. China Military Online yesterday posted an article titled “Their schemes — beware the infiltration of Japanese militarism in culture and sports.” The article referenced recent controversies around the popular anime series Pokemon, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia, saying that “the evil influence of Japanese militarism lives on in
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
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