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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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