UNITED STATES
NBC sacks TV host Lauer
Matt Lauer, the host of NBC television’s Today show on Wednesday was fired for what NBC called “inappropriate sexual behavior” with a colleague and was promptly confronted with a published report accusing him of crude and habitual misconduct with other women around the office. Network news boss Andrew Lack said in a memo to the staff that NBC received a complaint about Lauer’s behavior on Monday and determined he violated company standards. NBC said the misconduct started when Lauer and a network employee were at the Sochi Olympics in 2014 and continued beyond that assignment. Lack said it was the first complaint lodged against Lauer in his 20 years at NBC, but “we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.” In other developments, former Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor was cut loose by Minnesota Public Radio over an allegation of “inappropriate behavior.” It gave no details, but the 75-year-old Keillor said he inadvertently put his hand on a woman’s bare back in an attempt to console her.
AUSTRALIA
Lawmaker quits party posts
Federal Senator Sam Dastyari yesterday resigned from his Labor Party leadership roles over scandals involving wealthy Chinese businessman and political donor Huang Xiangmo (黃向墨) that have raised accusations of China buying influence. Dastyari had been deputy Labor whip and chairman of a parliamentary committee examining the future of journalism. Fairfax Media reported this week that Dastyari gave the Chinese Communist Party-linked businessman countersurveillance advice when they met at Huang’s Sydney mansion in October last year. Dastyari has not denied the reports, but yesterday said he had no knowledge about whether Huang was under government surveillance at the time.
BANGLADESH
Pope to meet Rohingya
Pope Francis landed in Dhaka yesterday after wrapping up a diplomatically sensitive trip to Myanmar with a Mass for young people. The government is hoping that the pontiff’s three-day visit, during which he is to meet a group of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in Dhaka, will help pressure the international community to find a lasting solution to the influx of Muslim Rohingya fleeing their homes in Myanmar amid what the UN has said is a textbook case of ethnic cleansing.
GAZA STRIP
Power transfer delayed
Fatah and Hamas on Wednesday agreed to delay final transfer of power of the Gaza Strip from Hamas to the Western-backed Palestinian government from today to Dec. 10 to allow time to “complete arrangements,” officials said. The factions signed a reconciliation deal last month that said Hamas would complete the handover by today, but disputes over the transfer process have emerged in recent days.
UNITED STATES
Chinese actress picked
It took a year of searching and nearly 1,000 candidates, but Walt Disney Studios has found its Mulan (花木蘭). The studio on Wednesday said Chinese actress Liu Yifei (劉亦菲, Crystal Liu) is to play the warrior in a live-action epic from director Niki Caro. The 30-year-old actress is well known in China as a model, actress and singer. She started in television and has appeared in more than a dozen films. Liu speaks fluent English and spent part of her teens in New York City. Caro’s film is expected to be released in 2019.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
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