AUSTRALIA
Anti-Trump motion passed
The New South Wales Legislative Council, the upper house of the state’s parliament, yesterday unanimously passed a motion that described US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as “a revolting slug unfit for public office.” “This house ... agrees with those who have described Mr Trump as a ‘revolting slug’ unfit for public office,” the motion said. The house “condemns the misogynist, hateful comments” made by him about women and minorities, and those “that clearly describe sexual assault,” the motion said. No one objected to the motion, so it was recorded as having been unanimously agreed to by the Sydney-based house. Greens party lawmaker Jeremy Buckingham introduced the motion.
MYANMAR
Crackdown kills 26
Security forces have now killed at least 26 people in response to attacks on police that have sparked a dramatic escalation in violence in a Muslim-majority region along the border with Bangladesh, state media reports said. Military personnel and police reinforcements have poured into Maungdaw, Rakhine State, and have clashed with groups of up to 300 men, armed with pistols, swords and knives, the reports said. Human rights groups and advocates for the stateless Rohingya have voiced concern that the civilian population may be caught up in the authorities’ violent response. The killings bring the total death toll in northern Rakhine State since Sunday to 39, including 13 security personnel. The 26 alleged attackers reported killed include several who a local resident told reporters were shot while unarmed and fleeing soldiers.
BURUNDI
Vote to quit ICC passed
Lawmakers on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted in support of a plan to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), something no nation has ever done. The decision escalates a bitter dispute with the international community over the human rights situation in the nation, which has seen more than a year of deadly violence after President Pierre Nkurunziza made a controversial decision to pursue a third term. Ninety-four out of 110 lawmakers voted in favor of the withdrawal plan. The decision, which was also unanimously adopted by the Senate, now needs the president’s approval.
PHILIPPINES
Death toll revised
Police have said nearly 2,300 people have died in President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs since July, down from an earlier estimate of 3,600, after investigations into the near-daily killings. “Not all [the deaths] are related to the war on drugs,” National Police spokesman Dionardo Carlos said late on Wednesday. He said that 1,566 drug suspects were killed in police operations and 722 deaths were still under investigation or had already been investigated.
CHINA
Trapped elephants rescued
Rescuers in Yunnan Province used a large excavator to break down a concrete wall and free three elephants stuck in a reservoir for more than two days, state media reported. The two adult elephants and calf were discovered on Sunday in the 5m deep reservoir by forest rangers, but heavy rains filled up the pool and delayed rescue efforts. The two adult elephants helped the calf keep afloat as the water levels rose, while rescuers provided the trio with food. Authorities believe the calf fell in to the reservoir and the two adults went in to help.
ITALY
Playwright Dario Fo dies
Nobel prize-winning playwright, director and political activist Dario Fo, an acclaimed satirist who poked a finger in the eye of the church and state, has died aged 90, officials said yesterday. Famous for his cutting political satire in plays such as The Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Fo won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1997. He remained a committed activist to the end, skewering the nation’s authorities with his sharp wit. He was admitted to hospital in Milan 12 days ago. “With Dario Fo, Italy loses one of the great protagonists of theater, culture and the civic life of our country,” said Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who was himself regularly ridiculed by the irreverent Fo.
UNITED STATES
Turkey frees US journalist
Turkish authorities have released US journalist Lindsey Snell detained for the past two months after she fled Syria claiming to have been kidnapped by militants, a senior US official said yesterday. Snell is returning to the US, the official said. She was arrested on Aug. 6 for “violating a military zone” after she returned from Syria, where she said she had been filming civilians affected by airstrikes. The Committee to Protect Journalists media freedom watchdog welcomed Snell’s release. On her return flight to New York on Wednesday, Snell said she was concerned about her husband Suliman Wardak, who was also arrested in Turkey after traveling there to help with her case, the Guardian reported.
ITALY
Human traffickers jailed
A judge sentenced three men to 20 years each in jail on Wednesday for their role in packing hundreds of refugees into a boat in which 49 suffocated in the Mediterranean in August last year, a legal source said. The judge in Catania, Sicily, found the three guilty of murder and facilitating illegal immigration, more than a year after rescuers recovered the victims from the hold of a fishing boat from which they also pulled 312 survivors.
ECUADOR
Assange rape case delayed
The government has delayed until Nov. 14 its questioning of Julian Assange in a Swedish rape investigation, at the Wikileaks founder’s request, the prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday. The questioning, originally scheduled for Monday, could help end a four-year-long deadlock since Assange took refuge in the nation’s London embassy. “He made the request in a document, via the Ecuadoran ambassador in the UK, in which he sets out his reasons pertaining to protection guarantees and self-defense,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. Swedish chief prosecutor Ingrid Isgren and a police investigator will be allowed to be present to ask questions through the Ecuadoran prosecutor, who will later report the findings to Sweden, the European country’s prosecutors have previously said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Firm fined over Ford’s leg
A film production company was fined ￡1.6 million (US$1.95 million) on Wednesday over an accident on the set of Star Wars: The Force Awakens that broke the leg of movie star Harrison Ford. The actor was struck by a hydraulic door on the set of the Millennium Falcon at Pinewood Studios near London in June 2014. Prosecutors said Ford, who was 71 at the time, could have been killed by the door, which struck him with a force comparable to the weight of a small car.
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
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