GEORGIA
Prime minister resigns
Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili on Wednesday announced his resignation without explaining his reasons. Garibashvili is an ally of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose Georgian Dream party routed supporters of former president Mikhail Saakashvili in a 2012 election. He has served as prime minister of the former Soviet nation since November 2013. Garibashvili did not immediately specify the reason behind his resignation as he made the announcement, but offered some self-praise, saying that “we have returned freedom and dignity to our citizens.” The media had speculated that Garibashvili would step down to focus all his energy on the campaign for Georgian Dream in parliamentary elections next November. The party’s popularity has steadily fallen as voters have been disappointed by the nation’s worsening economic situation. In contrast, support for Saakashvili’s United National Movement has risen and some recent polls indicated that it has caught up with Georgian Dream or even overtaken it in popularity.
SAUDI ARABIA
Hospital fire kills 25
A fire ripped through a hospital yesterday, killing at least 25 people and injuring 107, the authorities said. The blaze broke out in the intensive care unit and the maternity department of the Jazan General Hospital in the kingdom’s south, the civil defense agency said on Twitter. It said in an update later that the fire had been extinguished and an investigation was under way into the cause. Twenty-one civil defense teams had assisted in putting out the blaze, it added. Al-Riyadh daily quoted a civil defense spokesman as saying that the agency was alerted of the fire at 2am.
UNITED KINGDOM
Moscow critic mulls asylum
Top Russian opposition leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Wednesday said he might apply for political asylum after Moscow issued an international warrant for his arrest. Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man but later imprisoned for 10 years after falling foul of Russian President Vladimir Putin, told the BBC the Russian leader still saw him as a threat. “Definitely I’m considering asking for asylum in the UK,” said the Kremlin critic, who already spends much of his time in London. “I’m considered by President Putin as a threat, economically, because of the possible seizure of Russian assets abroad, and politically, as someone who will potentially help democratic candidates in the coming 2016 elections.”
AUSTRIA
DJ punished for prank
A radio station has punished one of its show hosts after he locked himself in the studio only to play the song Last Christmas, a cult hit from the 1980s by British band Wham, 24 times in a row. Only after the man’s daughter called the studio to beg her father to stop because the song made everyone “mad” did he finish his one-song marathon, according to a video on Youtube. Timm Bodner, programming head of the station Antenne Kaernten in the province of Carinthia, said on Wednesday that the 27-year-old disc jockey barricaded the studio on Friday last week with a wooden stick to play the prank on his listeners. “In general, it was funny, but there must be consequences,” Bodner said in a telephone conversation. “As a consequence he will have to work tomorrow on Christmas and on New Year’s eve.”
JAPAN
Reporter said held hostage
The government is seeking information after reports a freelance journalist is being held hostage in Syria and has been threatened with execution, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said yesterday. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said this week that, according to information it had received, an armed group holding journalist Yasuda Jumpei hostage had started a countdown for an unspecified ransom to be paid and had threatened to execute or sell him to another group if their demands were not met. RSF said in a statement on its Web site that Yasuda was kidnapped in July by an armed group in an area controlled by the militant Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s Syria wing, shortly after entering the nation earlier that month. Suga spoke in response to a question about the RSF statement at a news conference.
JAPAN
Reactors’ restart approved
The Fukui Distrcit Court has given the go-ahead for the restart of two nuclear reactors after its operator said in an appeal they were safe. The court in April accepted an injunction request by a group of residents saying a massive earthquake exceeding the facility’s quake resistance standards could cause disaster similar to the Fukushima Dai-ichi crisis following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The lifting of the injunction yesterday paves the way for a resumption of the Takahama No. 3 and No. 4 reactors, operated by Kansai Electric Power Co. It had already obtained the approval of safety regulators and town and prefectural assemblies. Two of the nation’s 43 workable reactors are currently back online.
CHINA
Ex-media head jailed
A Shanghai court yesterday jailed the former president of a major news organization for four years after finding him guilty of extortion and fraud. Shanghai prosecutors last year arrested Shen Hao (沈顥), president of 21st Century Media and publisher of influential business daily 21st Century Business Herald, on counts of extortion, bribery and misappropriation of funds. The court found that Shen demanded money from companies in exchange for covering up bad news or for reporting positive stories, Xinhua news agency reported. Shen was also fined 60,000 yuan (US$9,260), the report said. Calls to the newspaper seeking comment were not answered. A trend toward greater commercialization in media — still controlled heavily by the state — has put pressure on companies to generate greater profits. The investigation into the 21st Century Business Herald came amid a crackdown at state broadcaster China Central Television, where some senior executives have also been targeted.
RUSSIA
Coal a welcome reward
Shedding the pounds in Siberia can come with a particularly welcome reward — coal. Yelena Salnikova, a nurse from a small town of Berezovskoye, on Wednesday received a truck full of the stuff from authorities in the coal-rich region of Kemerovo for losing 30 kilos. The dispatch means that Kemerovo’s long-serving governor, Aman Tuleyev, has made good on his promise earlier this year to award locals with 1.5 tonnes of coal for every 10 kilos lost. Salnikova said on television that the 5-tonne truck of coal would help her heat her home for at least half the long Siberian winter even if temperature falls below minus-30°C.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
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