FRANCE
Refugee killed by train
A refugee was killed overnight on Thursday after being hit by a freight train on the site of the Channel tunnel near Calais, firefighters said, taking the death toll there among people trying to reach Britain to 16 since June. The body was found by firefighters alongside a train platform in Coquelles. The force of the impact made it impossible to immediately identify the victim’s sex, age or nationality.
SOUTH AFRICA
ICC extends deadline
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has given the nation more time to explain why it failed to arrest Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is accused by the court of war crimes, when he visited the country in June. As a court signatory, Pretoria is obliged to implement warrants from the court. However, when al-Bashir visited for an African Union summit, the government refused to arrest him, and allowed him to leave the nation in violation of a domestic court order. The government said it needed more time to respond. Pretoria should report back to the ICC on the progress of legal proceedings no later than Dec. 31, the ICC said in a statement.
CHINA
Corpse theft brings arrests
Police have detained three people suspected of stealing a corpse to sell as a bride in the ancient rite of ghost weddings, which join single people who died for a belated marriage in the afterlife. Xinhua News Agency said the main suspect had heard about the death of a young woman in a nearby village in Shanxi Province and thought of selling the corpse to relatives of a single dead man, citing police in Ruicheng County. Xinhua said the three suspects pretended to be relatives of the woman and negotiated a sale price of 25,000 yuan (US$4,000) with a buyer. However, while raiding a tomb for the body on Saturday last week, they were caught by villagers.
DENMARK
Zoo dissects lion cub
Zoo staff on Thursday dissected a nine-month-old lion cub in front of an audience of enthralled young children, as a social media storm about the gruesome display raged outside. Some of the youngsters held their noses as zookeepers methodically sliced up the cat.
UNITED KINGDOM
Bridge ruling upheld
Legions of bridge players in Britain might feel they have been dealt a rotten hand after a court decision endorsed an earlier ruling that the popular card game is not a sport. A High Court judge on Thursday backed Sport England’s assertion that bridge is not a sport because it does not involve physical activity.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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