KOSOVO
Police claim plot foiled
Police say they have foiled an apparent attempt to detonate a car filled with explosive material in Pristina. Police spokesman Baki Kelani said the driver of the car has been arrested and questioned. He said police acted on intelligence and stopped the suspect late on Thursday as he drove toward an area where most Western embassies are located, including the US embassy. Kelani said the car had Serbian-issued license plates and that the driver has a Serbian passport.
VATICAN CITY
Feminist nabs baby Jesus
An activist from the feminist group Femen bared her breasts in St Peter’s Square on Christmas Day and rushed the Nativity scene, grabbing a figurine of baby Jesus. A Vatican police officer wearing a black cape was quick to arrest the blonde activist and wrest the figurine away from her. The words “God is woman” were daubed in large letters on her chest. Although the incident occurred well after Pope Francis delivered his Christmas message from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica, thousands of pilgrims were still in the famous square.
UNITED STATES
Panda cub over shock
The National Zoo’s panda cub Bao Bao is back with her mother after spending more than 24 hours in a tree, where she went after being startled by a tool the Washington zoo uses to contain animals. The zoo said Bao Bao climbed the tree on Tuesday afternoon after touching a “hot wire” used for animal containment. WRC-TV reports that she came down late on Wednesday. Members of the public, who can watch live video of the zoo’s pandas online, posted worried inquiries on the zoo’s Facebook page when they saw that Bao Bao was in a tree overnight and still there on Wednesday. However, the zoo said Bao Bao was “perfectly fine.”
MEXICO
Upscale store reports hack
A leading department store chain in Mexico City says employees’ e-mail accounts were hacked and some customer information was taken. The upscale El Puerto de Liverpool chain said in a statement to the Stock Exchange on Wednesday that the attack was part of “an extortion attempt,” but did not say what the extortionists had demanded. Small and medium-sized businesses in the nation are frequently targets of extortion attempts by gangs who demand protection payments. However, large chains are seldom attacked, and seldom are the demands enforced by hacking into a company’s computers. El Puerto de Liverpool said the attack “sought to damage our reputation,” and added the risk to customers’ accounts was deemed to be small.
HONG KONG
Police arrest 37 protesters
Hong Kong police arrested 37 people overnight on Thursday as pro-democracy protesters returned to the streets for a second night demanding open nominations for the territory’s chief executive, according to police. The police said in a statement that protesters blocked five roads overnight in the Mong Kok neighborhood and disobeyed police orders to leave. The arrested protesters were aged between 13 and 76. Police arrested 12 protesters in the same neighborhood overnight on Wednesday, after they had also blocked roads. The Facebook page of a pro-democracy activist group called Hong Kong Shield said protesters walked by the three protest sites over the two nights, singing political songs and holding the umbrellas that have become a symbol of the city’s democracy movement. Some in the crowd wore red Santa Claus hats and chanted “I want true democracy” in Cantonese. The group is led in part by well-known Hong Kong singer Denise Ho (何韻詩), who was arrested this month during the police clearance of the main Admiralty protest site. The police statement said police “respect the public’s freedoms of expression, speech and assembly” but warned that protesters “should refrain from conducting public meetings and processions.”
CHINA
Man drives into crowd
An elderly man drove his car through a crowd of pedestrians outside a popular Beijing sports stadium yesterday morning, injuring eight people in what appeared to be a protest against an unfavorable court ruling, police said. The Beijing resident, with the surname of Jin (金), had recently lost a property dispute in court, according to a statement by Beijing police. The Beijing Times Web site said his car had the word “injustice” painted on it as it drove through the crowd yesterday morning. The man was wearing a piece of fabric on his head bearing the same word. His car finally came to a stop after slamming into other vehicles at the south gate of the Workers’ Stadium.
JAPAN
McDonald’s lifts fry limit
McDonald’s customers in the nation will be able to order french fries in all sizes again from next month, after the fast-food chain limited sales to small servings because of import delays. McDonald’s Holdings Co (Japan) Ltd said yesterday it plans to resume sales of medium and large-size servings of french fries on Jan. 5, as it has secured enough inventory by implementing emergency measures. The company, owned 49.9 percent by McDonald’s Corp, began restricting serving sizes on Wednesday last week after a labor dispute at ports on the US west coast led to delays in imports.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
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