CANADA
Minister dies in plane crash
Former Alberta premier and long-time-federal minister Jim Prentice and three others died in an airplane crash in southern British Columbia. The Conservative Party of Canada on Friday confirmed his death. He was 60. Prentice was among former prime minister Stephen Harper’s most trusted Cabinet ministers. He served as the minister for industry, minister of the environment and minister of Indian and northern affairs. He left federal politics for provincial politics and became premier of Alberta in 2014. Prentice, a moderate conservative who voted for same-sex marriage before many of his Conservative colleagues, was widely respected. A team of investigators from the board was on its way to the scene of the crash near Kelowna, British Columbia. Transportation Safety Board spokesman Bill Yearwood said a Cessna Citation aircraft with four people on board went down at about 10:30pm on Thursday after taking off from Kelowna on a flight to Springbank, outside Calgary.
UNITED STATES
Kansas militia accused
Three members of a Kansas militia group are accused of plotting to bomb an apartment complex that’s home to Somalian immigrants in the western Kansas meatpacking town of Garden City. Prosecutors said the thwarted attack was planned for the day after the November election. A complaint unsealed on Friday charges 49-year-old Curtis Wayne Allen, 47-year-old Patrick Eugene Stein and 49-year-old Gavin Wayne Wright with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. The complaint said they are members of a small militia group that calls itself “the Crusaders.” Members espouse sovereign citizen, anti-government, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant extremist beliefs. The complaint alleges group members hoped to inspire other militia groups and “wake people up.”
UNITED STATES
Two charged with IS intent
Two Milwaukee men were charged in federal court on Friday with trying to join the Islamic State (IS) group by traveling through Mexico to Syria. Jason Michael Ludke, 35, is charged with attempting to support a foreign terrorist organization, and Yosvany Padilla-Conde, 30, is charged with aiding and abetting Ludke. Both men face up to 20 years in prison. According to the complaint, Ludke and Padilla-Conde began corresponding on social media with an undercover FBI agent last month and said they planned to travel to Mexico, where they could get passage to Syria and join the Islamic State group in Iraq. The agent received an e-mail on Oct. 1 containing video footage of Padilla-Conde and Ludke with a handmade Islamic State group flag in the background. The agent told Ludke that people in Mexico would be able to get them passports for Arab counties. On Oct. 5 Ludke told the agent that he and Padilla-Conde were in Texas heading toward El Paso. Police captured them later that day.
UNITED STATES
Brothel boss’ house razed
A wildfire fanned by high winds destroyed 22 homes in a wooded area of northern Nevada on Friday, among them a mountain property belonging to the owner of a famous brothel in the state. Dennis Hof, the owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in the Carson City area, said on Twitter that one of his houses was destroyed by the blaze, which fire officials said had scorched 809 hectares in the area of Washoe Valley just south of Reno. Hof, who was profiled along with workers at his legal brothel in the TV series Cathouse on cable channel HBO, posted a photo of the house reduced to rubble.
CHINA
Xi inks deal with Dhaka
China has signed off on more than US$33 billion in government and private-sector investment to fund a series of large-scale infrastructure projects in Bangladesh during President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) visit to Dhaka on Friday. Xi’s visit, the first by a Chinese head of state to Bangladesh in 30 years, is part of the Asian economic giant’s ambition to advance its “One Belt, One Road” initiative — a plan devoted to reviving the ancient Silk Road trading route from Asia to Europe by boosting economic ties and investing in transport hubs.
THAILAND
Regent appointed caretaker
The government said that a regent is to be the caretaker of the monarchy while the nation mourns the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Thais in their thousands descended on the Grand Palace in Bangkok yesterday to pay respects to Bhumibol, but were met with the unexpected closure of the complex. Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam appeared on television on Friday evening to explain that the head of the Privy Council, which is an advisory body to the king, is automatically the regent until a new monarch is crowned. There was no official statement that the council’s head, 96-year-old Prem Tinsulanonda, had been named regent, creating uncertainty, but Wissanu said an announcement was not needed because the process is mandated by Thailand’s constitution.
AUSTRALIA
Two arrested in drugs bust
Australian Federal Police yesterday said they had arrested two Polish men in connection with the seizure of 1.2 tonnes of crystal MDMA, the main chemical used in ecstasy pills. A raid on a storage facility in Sydney’s north on Thursday uncovered the drugs — Australia’s largest seizure this year — in a consignment of aluminum rollers imported from the Czech Republic, police said. The haul equates to more than 4.1 million ecstasy tablets, with an estimated street value of US$145 million. Two Polish men, aged 28 and 29, were arrested on Friday and charged with serious drug importation of fences. They could face life in prison if found guilty.
FRANCE
Refugee killed by train
An Iraqi refugee was killed and two others injured on Friday after being mowed down by a freight train near a camp in the northern French port of Dunkirk, authorities said. The accident occurred as the refugees were trying to cross the railway tracks near the Grande-Synthe humanitarian camp on the outskirts of Dunkirk. One of the injured was treated in hospital for shock while the other suffered a minor hip injury, the authorities said. The port of Dunkirk is situated about 40km east along the Channel coast from Calais.
INDIA
Goa secured for meeting
Goa has been turned into a high-security zone with thousands of paramilitary troops, coast guards and police guarding venues where the leaders of five emerging market economies are meeting over the weekend. Sniffer dogs and troops with mine-detectors combed the beaches next to the five-star hotel in Benaulim, where the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa were meeting for their eighth summit yesterday. Goa police also shut sections of the main road and tourists had to take long detours to reach the few beaches that are open to the public this weekend.
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
SHOW OF SUPPORT: The move showed that aggression toward Greenland is a question for Europe and Canada, and the consequences are global, not just Danish, experts said Canada and France, which adamantly oppose US President Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, were to open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital yesterday, in a strong show of support for the local government. Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons. Trump last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence. A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns
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