UNITED KINGDOM
Woman demolishes factory
It was a daily reminder of the death of her father in an industrial accident, but a mother of two said she felt relief after she was given the chance to demolish the factory where he was killed. Sarah Griffiths won a competition to lead the demolition on Sunday of a tower owned by Campbell’s Soup food manufacturer. It was the site where her father, Mick Locke, was fatally scalded in 1995 in a steam accident. After she triggered the series of explosions which downed the factory in King’s Lynn, England, the 41-year-old Griffiths said the event had given her a “chance of closure.” The site was being cleared for a new commercial and retail development.
FRANCE
Two pandas welcomed
Two Chinese pandas got a red-carpet welcome on Sunday when they arrived in Paris for a new life in a country zoo after Beijing put aside its differences with France and extended the hand of bear diplomacy. The giant black and white bears arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport from Sichuan Province in the “Panda Express,” a Boeing 777 specially decorated with a panda motif. China’s ambassador to Paris, a French MP and zoo staff were on hand to greet the pair before they were whisked off in a truck with a police escort to their new home among the chateaux of the Loire valley. Huan Huan (Happy) and Yuan Zi (Chubby) are the first pandas sent to France since 1973, when Yen Yen — who lived till 2000 — was given to then-president Georges Pompidou along with another panda, which died shortly after arriving.
JAPAN
Naked corpse found
Tokyo police yesterday were investigating after finding the body of a naked man whose genitals had been sliced off with a kitchen knife, media reports said. The corpse of the 49-year-old man, who had been stabbed several times in the chest and stomach, was found lying on a bed in an apartment in the west of the city, NHK reported. The man’s genitals were discovered under the bed and a blood-covered knife was also found in the room, Jiji Press said, citing police sources. A spokeswoman for Tokyo Metropolitan Police confirmed that officers were investigating an unnatural death.
VIETNAM
Dissident released
Authorities have released a French-Vietnamese dissident who spent 17 months in jail after being convicted of attempting to overthrow the government. Lawyer Tran Vu Hai said yesterday that 56-year-old Pham Minh Hoang was freed from jail on Friday and would now serve three years of house arrest. Hoang holds dual citizenship. He was sentenced to three years in jail after an August trial in which he was found guilty of posting 33 articles criticizing the one-party Communist system, as well as of holding membership in a banned group and recruiting others to join it. An appeals court in November reduced his sentence to 17 months, citing his cooperation with police and his commitment to renounce the banned group.
AUSTRIA
Farmer crushed by cow
A farmer has died after being crushed by a cow, authorities in the northwestern Upper Austria province said. The accident happened early on Sunday as the 31-year-old woman worked at her farm, they said. She apparently was crushed against a trough or a wall by the animal and died of her injuries at the scene.
ISRAEL
War games postponed
Defense officials say Washington and Jerusalem have postponed their largest-ever war games to avoid aggravating mounting tensions between Iran and the international community. The missile defense exercise, “Austere Challenge 12,” was scheduled for April to improve defense systems and cooperation between the two forces. Defense officials said yesterday the drill would not take place before the second half of this year. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the decision, which they said was taken on Sunday.
IRAQ
Bomb targets minority group
A car bomb targeting an internally displaced persons camp for a tiny minority group near the main northern city of Mosul killed five people and wounded six others yesterday, officials said. The 8am blast in the town of Bartala, in Nineveh Province north of Baghdad, occurred inside the al-Ghadir camp housing displaced members of the Shabak community, a sect of Kurdish origin, according to an army official and a medic at Mosul General Hospital. The Shabak community numbers about 30,000 people living in 35 villages in Nineveh, and many want to become part of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. They speak a distinct language and largely follow a faith that is a blend of Shiite Islam and local beliefs.
CANADA
Liberals backs marijuana bill
The Liberal Party overwhelmingly passed a motion on Sunday proposing the legalization of marijuana on the last day of its national convention, at which Michael Crawley was chosen as its new leader. The motion says that, if elected, a Liberal government “will legalize marijuana and ensure the regulation and taxation of its production, distribution and use, while enacting strict penalties for illegal trafficking, illegal importation and exportation, and impaired driving.” Under the motion, the Liberals also promised an amnesty for all citizens previously found guilty of simple or minimal possession of marijuana and to clear the offenses from their criminal records. The motion passed with 77 percent of the vote.
SOMALIA
Crew freed after ransom
Pirates have freed the 18-man crew of a Maltese-flagged chemical tanker after the payment of a US$4 million ransom, the maritime editor of the Somalia Report said yesterday. Andrew Mwangura, an authoritative source on piracy, said the crew — three Turks and 15 Georgians — sailed to the Kenyan port of Mombasa in a tugboat after their release last week, while the tanker, the MV Olib G, was abandoned off the coast. The Greek-owned and operated chemical tanker was seized in the Gulf of Aden while on its final trip before the scrapyard, according to Mwangura, a former regional maritime official.
DENMARK
Danes slash catering budget
Copenhagen, which hosts the rotating presidency of the EU, will reduce servings of meat and serve tap water, rather than bottled water, at the summits it will host for the bloc’s leaders, TV2 reported. The government plans to spend about 35 million euros (US$44 million) on its six-month presidency compared with the 115 million euros that Poland spent during its term in the second half of last year, the broadcaster said, citing data from the foreign ministry.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
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