UNITED KINGDOM
Islamic State issues threat
The Islamic State group on Sunday threatened Britain in an online video showing the killing of five “spies” it said worked with the international coalition fighting the extremist group in Iraq and Syria. The SITE Intelligence Group said the video shows five men from Raqa, capital of the self-declared Muslim “caliphate” straddling Syria and Iraq, confessing to carrying out acts of espionage. In the footage, an English-speaking extremist mocks Prime Minister David Cameron for challenging the Islamic State, and calls him an “imbecile.” The “confessions” of the five do not clearly identify which countries they worked with.
YEMEN
Aden leaders impose curfew
Authorities in Aden yesterday imposed a curfew after violence blamed on suspected extremists killed at least 17 people, pro-government media and security sources said. The curfew is to come into force at 8pm and last until 5am, the sabanews.net Web site said, citing a decision taken by the Aden Security Commission. The decision comes after fierce battles on Sunday in the port of Aden that killed 17 people, among them nine members of the security forces, including a colonel, the security sources said.
POLAND
Government defends law
The government on Sunday defended its new media law as fair, voicing surprise at the EU’s negative reaction to the legislation. Last week, lawmakers approved legislation by the new ruling party that ends the terms of the current heads of state-run radio and TV, who were appointed by the previous establishment. The new law also gives the government the authority to make new appointments. President Andrzej Duda is expected to sign it into law soon, as the ruling conservative and EU-skeptic Law and Justice party is rushing to make major state and social reforms it promised in the presidential and parliamentary campaigns last year.
ITALY
Rain brings guano deluge
Weekend rain washed away the dangerous pollution that has afflicted Rome in recent weeks, but left city authorities with a new headache: roads and sidewalks made treacherous by bird droppings. The downpours that cleaned up the air and brought levels of fine particles back down below a WHO-recommended threshold also cleansed the city’s trees of several weeks’ worth of guano deposited by millions of migratory starlings. The result, in combination with rotting leaves, was a slippery, slimy fungal mush that forced city authorities to close roads on the banks of the Tiber for most of Saturday while workers attempted to hose the streets back into a safe state.
UNITED STATES
Selfie lands robber in jail
Police in northern California say they have arrested a man accused of armed robbery thanks to a Snapchat selfie he took with one of the victims. KNTV reports that Pacific Grove police arrested 18-year-old Victor Almanza-Martinez, of Castroville, who is believed to have participated in an armed robbery. Police said that Almanza-Martinez and two others approached four victims on Wednesday last week at Lover Point Park and allegedly robbed them of their belongings, including a car. The suspects fled in the stolen car, which is still missing, but before leaving Almanza-Martinez and a female victim exchanged Snapchat information and posed for a selfie together. Police said the selfie helped them track down Almanza-Martinez.
JAPAN
Abe foresees challenges
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday told a nationally televised news conference that the coming year is likely to bring “challenges, challenges and still more challenges.” He said he expects to make progress on sweeping reforms he has promised, likening himself to the 18th-century “Abarenbo Shogun,” or “Rogue general” Tokugawa Yoshimune, a national leader renowned for his efforts to reduce waste, clean up corruption and instill samurai values of discipline and leadership. Abe also said that he hoped for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on a dispute over northern islands that has blocked the two nations from signing a peace treaty since the end of World War II. Meanwhile, local political superstition holds that every nine years a setback in elections for the Diet’s upper house forces the prime minister to step down. “Observers will be watching closely to see whether he is able to break the jinx,” the Jiji news agency said in a commentary.
SRI LANKA
TNA hails land offer
The main opposition Tamil National Alliance (TNA) yesterday welcomed President Maithripala Sirisena’s promise of land for 100,000 people who were forced from their homes during the long civil war, most of them Tamils. It said Sirisena’s pledge to give displaced civilians new plots within six months was a “positive development,” but demanded that the military vacate the private land it occupied. “This is the first time he is giving a timeframe,” TNA spokesman M.A. Sumanthiran said, one day after Sirisena made the offer. More than 100,000 people are still living away from their homes more than six years after the end of the war, Sumanthiran said, while another 168,000 live as refugees in India.
KYRGYZSTAN
Briton held over penis post
A Briton working at a Canadian-owned gold mine could face up to five years in jail for comparing a local delicacy to a horse penis, officials said on Sunday. Michael Mcfeat, an employee of Toronto-based Centerra Gold, was detained by police after posting a comment on Facebook that caused a temporary strike at the Kumtor mine, a Ministry of the Interior spokesman said. In the offending post, Mcfeat said his colleagues were lining up for their “special delicacy, the horse’s penis” during holiday celebrations in reference to a traditional horse sausage known as chuchuk. Mcfeat has deleted his remarks and posted an apology on Facebook, saying he had not meant to offend anyone.
PHILIPPINES
Protest to Beijing likely
The government yesterday said that, like Vietnam, it opposes China’s recent test of a newly completed runway on one of seven islands Beijing has constructed in the South China Sea. Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose said the government was considering protesting China’s action, as Vietnam did, adding that the test at the Fiery Cross Reef (Yongshu Reef, 永暑礁) “adds to tension and uncertainties in the region.”
CHINA
‘Feudal’ beliefs targeted
The Chinese Communist Party has tightened its ban on members believing in “feudal superstitions,” Xinhua news agency said on Sunday, as part of new regulations on discipline. The new rules, which took effect on Friday last week, threaten members who “organize” superstitious activities such as reliance on fortune telling and feng shui with expulsion, while those who merely participate in them face warnings.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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