AUSTRALIA
Cardinal back to face court
A top Vatican official accused of sex crimes yesterday arrived in Sydney ahead of his first court appearance later this month. Police late last month said that Cardinal George Pell faced multiple charges of “historical sexual offenses” from multiple complainants. The Sydney Catholic archdiocese yesterday said Pell’s return “should not be a surprise” because he had already said he would return to defend himself against the charges. He is due to appear in a Melbourne court on July 26.
JORDAN
Airlines to allow laptops
Royal Jordanian and Kuwait Airways on Sunday announced that passengers would once again be allowed to carry personal electronics, including laptops, on board US-bound flights, ending a ban that was imposed in March last year. The US had issued the ban over concerns Islamic State fighters and other extremists could hide bombs inside laptops. Royal Jordanian on Sunday said it has implemented “enhanced security measures” in line with US Department of Homeland Security requirements.
AUSTRIA
Turkish minister barred
The government yesterday said it had barred Turkish Minister of the Economy Nihat Zeybekci from entering the country to attend a rally marking the anniversary of last year’s failed coup attempt in Turkey. “He has been barred because his visit was not planned as part of a bilateral exchange, but was about his public appearance at an event marking the coup attempt,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Thomas Schnoell told reporters, adding that his attendance would have posed a “danger for public order.”
INDIA
Police patrol for poachers
Police are patrolling for poachers as rhinos, deer and wild buffaloes move to higher ground to escape floods inundating Kaziranga National Park in Assam State. Assam Forest and Environment Minister Pramila Rani Brahma yesterday described the flooding in the park as grave. Flooding and landslides in Assam have killed at least 28 people since the middle of last month and about 500,000 people have fled their homes.
CHINA
Floods, landslides kill many
Floods and landslides have killed scores of people in Hunan Province as two weeks of torrential rains forced 1.6 million to flee, authorities said yesterday. About 53,000 homes have collapsed while nearly 350,000 others were seriously or partially damaged after 11 consecutive days of rain, Hunan Civil Affairs Department Deputy Director Tang Biyu said. At least 63 people were killed while 20 more are missing, Tang said in a statement.
KENYA
Chief justice, president spar
Chief Justice David Maraga on Sunday warned President Uhuru Kenyatta not to undermine public confidence in the judiciary in an unusually sharp exchange between the two men less than one month before national elections are due. Kenyatta had earlier responded to a court victory for the opposition against the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission by cautioning against any use of the court process to delay the elections. Maraga released a statement a few hours later, saying: “When political leaders cast aspersions on the administration of justice based on a misinterpretation of my statements, it has the potential to impair public confidence in our courts.”
FRANCE
Government presses tax cuts
The government is to press ahead with tax cuts promised by President Emmanuel Macron, a ministry of finance source said yesterday, despite warnings from the official state audit body about an 8 billion euro (US$9.1 billion) hole in the budget. Macron insisted at a meeting on Sunday that plans to rein in the wealth tax and scrap local property taxes for 80 percent of those currently paying them begin to take effect next year, the ministry source said, confirming earlier media reports. The president’s intervention comes just days after Prime Minister Edouard Philippe had suggested the cuts would be postponed into 2019.
UNITED KINGDOM
Market building burns
Seventy firefighters battled a large fire in a building in London’s popular Camden Lock Market in the early hours yesterday, the London Fire Brigade said. The emergency service said it had also sent 10 fire engines to the scene, near a nightclub and a covered market. There were no reports of any casualties. “The first, second and third floors, plus the roof, of a building within the market are alight,” the London Fire Brigade said on Twitter. “The fire was moving very fast,” witness Joan Ribes, 24, told the Press Association. He said the fire “was flying through the air to the surrounding areas.”
FRANCE
Paris subway flooded
Paris subway authorities closed metro stations due to flooding after thunderstorms and heavy rain pounded the capital, officials said yesterday. A violent two-hour storm struck the city late on Sunday, forcing the closure of about 15 stations due to flooding, although they reopened yesterday morning and traffic was normal, the Paris transport authority, the RATP, said. The downpours resumed early yesterday, and the national weather service Meteo France placed 12 departments, including those in the greater Paris region, on a 24-hour “orange alert” for heavy rains and electrical storms.
CANADA
Wildfires ravage BC
As British Columbia (BC) battled 220 wildfires scattered across the province on Sunday, officials said they expect greater devastation with forecasts of more hot, dry weather over the coming week. “Looking at the medley of forecasts out there, it’s certainly not optimistic,” British Columbia’s chief fire spokesman Kevin Skrepnek told a news conference. “We are going to be at the mercy of the weather.” The blazes took off on Friday when 138 fires started as electrical storms and brisk winds passed through the interior of the bone-dry province, which has not seen significant rains for weeks.
UNITED STATES
Teenager fights off bear
A teen staffer at a Colorado camp fought off a bear after waking up on Sunday to find the animal biting his head and trying to drag him away. The 19-year-old woke up at around 4am to a “crunching sound” with his head inside the mouth of the bear, which was trying to pull him out of his sleeping bag as he slept outside at Glacier View Ranch 77km northwest of Denver, Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill said. The teen punched and hit it and other staffers who were sleeping nearby yelled and swatted at the bear, which eventually left, she said. The staffer, identified only as Dylan, was treated briefly at a hospital and released. The teen told KMGH-TV that the bear dragged him 3m to 4m before he was able to free himself.
The Bolivian government on Friday struck a deal with protesting miners, but was still grappling with blockades and demonstrations by other workers across La Paz. Other groups are still blocking access roads into the city, which is also the seat of the government. Police on Thursday prevented the miners from entering the main square by using tear gas, while the demonstrators hurled stones and explosives with slingshots. Protests against the policies of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz have convulsed the Andean nation since early this month, and roadblocks were choking routes into La Paz throughout Friday, the national road authority said. Miners demanded that Paz
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
A ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was seized and taken toward Iran and another — a cargo ship near Oman — sank after being attacked, authorities said on Thursday, as tensions escalated near the Strait of Hormuz. It was not immediately clear who was behind these incidents, but they happened as a senior Iranian official reiterated his country’s claim of control over the waterway and another said it had a right to seize oil tankers connected to the US. The turmoil in the strait has been a sticking point for weeks in talks between the US and Iran to
The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
RSS