INDONESIA
Papuans protest to Australia
A student group says three activists from restive West Papua Province breached security to enter the Australian consulate in Bali, calling for leaders attending the APEC summit on the island to pressure the government to release political prisoners. The Alliance of Papuan Students says the men entered the compound early yesterday. They handed over a letter that asked Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and other leaders to push the country to free 55 people imprisoned for “discussing their political and human rights beliefs,” according to a copy of the hand-written letter released by the group. The Australian government confirmed that the Papuans delivered a protest letter to the consulate and left voluntarily before 7am. The country is highly sensitive to the separatist struggles in Papua, a former Dutch colony.
THAILAND
Plane skids off runway
Nok Air says one of its planes has skidded off a runway in the northeast, but none of the 25 passengers and crew aboard were injured. The airline says the incident yesterday involved a SAAB 340B turboprop chartered by Siam General Aviation Co, which is known as Nok Mini. The flight left the northern city of Chiang Mai and was landing at Undon Thani airport at the time. Nok Air blamed “a glitch in the engine,” but gave no other details. The airline says the plane is not blocking other flights and will be inspected.
THAILAND
Clash with militants kills six
Six people, including two policemen, were shot dead in a fierce gun battle between security forces and militants, authorities said yesterday, after a raid in the south of the country. The clash broke out after a combined army, police and paramilitary group tried to search a village in Narathiwat, one of several conflict-prone provinces in the Muslim-majority region, on Saturday. “It was quite a big gun battle, which lasted a long time,” southern army spokesman Colonel Pramote Prom-In said. “The dead were on our wanted lists.” He said a further seven suspects with warrants issued for them were also arrested in the raid. Almost a decade of conflict has left more than 5,700 people dead in the south. Shadowy groups of Muslim militants, calling for autonomy for the region, have waged near-daily bomb and gun attacks, targeting security forces and civilians from both the Buddhist and Muslim communities. The attacks continue despite several rounds of peace talks, hosted by Malaysia, between the authorities and one of a network of rebel groups. The next round of talks is expected later this month.
UNITED KINGDOM
Maddie’s parents hopeful
Madeleine McCann’s parents says they’re “greatly encouraged” by the expanding police investigation into the case of their missing daughter. Kate and Gerry McCann released a statement yesterday indicating they believe new information made available to police and a detailed BBC Crimewatch show may finally turn up vital information. The statement says the couple hopes the show “will bring further new evidence which will take us a step closer to finding Madeleine and to bringing those responsible for her abduction to justice.” The police said this week they are combing telephone records of thousands of tourists and residents who were at a Portuguese resort at the time of the three-year-old girl’s disappearance in May 2007. The Crimewatch show to be aired today will include a detailed reconstruction of the crime.
UNITED STATES
Mall self-immolator dies
A man who set himself on fire on the National Mall has died of his injuries, Washington police spokesman Araz Alali said. The man died Friday night at a hospital he had been airlifted to, Alali said, adding that the man was so badly burned that he will need to be identified through DNA and dental records. The man poured a can of gasoline on himself in the center of the mall on Friday afternoon and then set himself alight, prompting passing joggers to take off their shirts to help douse the flames. Police are investigating the man’s motive for self-immolating.
UNITED STATES
Tiger mauls zoo worker
A tiger ripped up the left arm of a worker at an Oklahoma animal park after the woman stuck her hand into the cat’s enclosure. Joe Schreibvogel, owner of Garold Wayne Interactive Zoological Park in Wynnewood, said the woman, in her early 20s, was undergoing surgery on Saturday at an Oklahoma City hospital to try and save her arm. “He tore her arm up pretty bad,” Schreibvogel said. “Her entire arm was still attached. It was badly, badly damaged... She pulled her own arm out. The tiger didn’t maul her. The tiger was in his cage and she violated his space by sticking her arm into his space.” He said that the park has a strict rule against introducing any body part into a wild animal’s enclosure.
CANADA
Cairo releases Canadians
Egyptian authorities have released two Canadians who had been held without charges in a Cairo prison since mid-August, officials said yesterday. Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomed the release of John Greyson, a Toronto filmmaker and university professor, and Tarek Loubani, an emergency room doctor from London, Ontario. Harper, speaking in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, said that Ottawa “welcomes this decision by the government of Egypt” to set the pair free. The pair had not been formally charged. They were arrested amid bloody clashes between Egyptian security forces and Islamists.
COLOMBIA
Anti-drug plane crashes
A small plane on a US counter-drug mission crashed on Saturday near the city of Capurgana in a remote, jungle region in the north of the country, killing three US contractors and a Panamanian National Guardsman, and seriously injuring two other Americans on board. The two injured passengers were rescued by soldiers and taken to a hospital in Bogota, the US Southern Command said in a statement. The Dash 8 was tracking a suspected smuggling vessel and another vessel over the west Caribbean region when it lost radio contact with the Joint Interagency Task Force South, a US-sponsored multinational task force in Florida that runs drug interdiction in the region, task force spokeswoman Jody Drives said.
IRELAND
Bid to scrap senate fails
Prime Minister Enda Kenny has vowed to push forward with reform of the upper house of parliament after voters rejected his plan to abolish the Seanad Eireann — the Senate — to save the bailed-out nation money. In a surprise blow for Kenny after he personally led the campaign to ditch the Senate, voters in a referendum on Friday narrowly opted to keep the 60-member house, according to results announced late on Saturday. Final results revealed that 51.7 percent voted in favor of keeping the Senate, while 48.3 percent wanted to scrap it. Turnout was 39.2 percent.
‘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
RELEASE: The move follows Washington’s removal of Havana from its list of terrorism sponsors. Most of the inmates were arrested for taking part in anti-government protests Cuba has freed 127 prisoners, including opposition leader Jose Daniel Ferrer, in a landmark deal with departing US President Joe Biden that has led to emotional reunions across the communist island. Ferrer, 54, is the most high-profile of the prisoners that Cuba began freeing on Wednesday after Biden agreed to remove the country from Washington’s list of terrorism sponsors — part of an eleventh-hour bid to cement his legacy before handing power on Monday to US president-elect Donald Trump. “Thank God we have him home,” Nelva Ortega said of her husband, Ferrer, who has been in and out of prison for the
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