GERMANY
Knifed official elected mayor
A Cologne city official who was stabbed in the neck in an attack, apparently over her work with refugees, was on Sunday elected the first female mayor of the city. Henriette Reker is in stable condition in hospital after being seriously injured in Saturday’s assault. Standing as an independent, though close to the ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) of Chancellor Angela Merkel, the 58-year-old had been the frontrunner to enter the town hall and final results gave her a clear win with 52.6 percent of the vote.
EGYPT
Polls see weak turnout
Authorities granted government workers a half-day off yesterday in an attempt to bolster low turnout in the country’s election for the first legislature since the last one was dissolved in 2012, according to the state-owned daily Al-Ahram. Yesterday was the second day of voting in 14 provinces, including Cairo’s twin city of Giza and the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria. Voting in the nation’s other 13 provinces, including the capital, Cairo, are to take place next month. Final results are expected in December and the 596-seat chamber is expected to hold its inaugural session later in the month. The government has not released turnout figures for voting on Sunday. The decision to give government workers a half-day off yesterday reflected deep concern over the turnout, which analysts and observers have said would not exceed 10 percent.
SPAIN
Nuke cleanup deal reached
Washington and Madrid have reached a new agreement in principle for the US to clean up land contaminated by radiation from undetonated nuclear bombs that accidentally fell on Palomares in 1966, a joint statement said yesterday. The two sides “intend to negotiate a binding agreement for a cooperative effort to conduct further remediation of the Palomares site and arrange for disposal of the contaminated soil at an appropriate site in the United States,” the statement said. On Jan. 17, 1966, a US B-52 bomber carrying four nuclear bombs collided with a tanker plane during mid-air refueling, and two thermonuclear bombs fell near Palomares. Although they did not detonate, they broke up, spreading 3.2kg of plutonium over a 200 hectare area.
UNITED STATES
Homeless have wedding feast
After a would-be groom called off his wedding in Sacramento, California, the bride-to-be’s family decided to turn the US$35,000 extravagant event into a feast for the homeless. The bride’s mother, Kari Duane, on Sunday said that rather than cancel the reception, they invited Sacramento’s homeless for a once in a lifetime meal on Saturday at the Citizen Hotel, one of the city’s finest venues. KCRA-TV reports that single people, grandparents and whole families with newborns enjoyed a meal that included appetizers, salad, gnocchi, salmon and even tri-tip sirloin. Some even dressed up for the occasion.
ITALY
Baguette measures 122m
A judge from Guinness World Records has certified a 122m baguette baked at the Milan Expo 2015 World’s Fair as the longest in the world. About 60 French and Italian bakers on Sunday worked nearly seven hours to bake the bread, methodically moving a specially designed portable oven along the length of the doughy preparation. The bakers worked at a rate of 20m an hour, their progress complicated by working outdoors and the biggest challenge: to avoid any breakage.
INDONESIA
No end in sight to fires
Forest fires that have caused choking smoke to drift across Southeast Asia are spreading to new areas and are unlikely to be put out until next year, experts said yesterday. Jakarta has come under increased pressure from its neighbors to contain the annual crisis. “Maybe it will last until December and January,” said Herry Purnomo, a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research, adding that hot spots had reached Papua Province, a region that usually avoids widespread fires. “It is because people are opening new agriculture areas, like palm oil.”
HONG KONG
Police charged over beating
Seven police officers yesterday appeared in court, charged with assaulting Civic Party activist Ken Tsang Kin-chiu (曾健超) in a beating captured on a video recording and beamed around the world. Some of them wore dark glasses and surgical masks as they entered the court, while about 50 supporters gathered outside waving Chinese flags and shouting: “Support police” and “Democrats will be doomed.” The seven are charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent. One also faces an allegation of common assault on Tsang. which officials said happened in an interview room after his arrest. All were released on bail and are due to appear again on Nov. 17. Tsang also appeared in court yesterday lon assault charges, with officials saying that he splashed liquid” on police officers — not those accused of attacking him — and resisted arrest. He was also released on bail, with his case adjourned to Dec. 9.
AUSTRALIA
Surfer’s family complains
Surfing champion Mick Fanning’s battle with a huge great white shark has been spoofed by Kentucky Fried Chicken for a new advertisement in South Africa, sparking stinging criticism from his family yesterday. The 34-year-old three-time world champion made global headlines when he dramatically escaped the shark during an event at Jeffreys Bay off South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province in of July. The fast-food chain’s decision to show a lookalike reenacting the scene — then spinning a computer-generated shark above his head as he rides the perfect wave — to market a new product, has not gone down well with Fanning’s family. “I think it is very disrespectful,” said his mother, Elizabeth Osborne.
IRELAND
Man dies on plane
Police say a 24-year-old Brazilian man has collapsed and died on board an Aer Lingus flight after becoming frenetic and attacking a fellow passenger. The Sunday night flight from Lisbon to Dublin was diverted to Cork, where paramedics pronounced the man dead on arrival. Passengers said he had bitten a man sitting near him and crew members sought to handcuff him before he lost consciousness. A doctor and nurse on board failed to revive him. Cork police arrested a 44-year-old Portuguese woman traveling with the man after discovering 2kg of suspected amphetamine powder in her suitcase. The bitten passenger was admitted to a Cork hospital.
NIGERIA
Female bombers hit village
Two female suicide bombers killed at least 11 people in the northeast after hiding among residents fleeing a suspected Boko Haram attack on a remote village on Saturday night, police said on Sunday. “Residents fled to the bush ... two women who [were] disguised as fleeing locals blew themselves up ... while a gunmen shot at survivors,” an official said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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