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.
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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