GERMANY
Suspected arson kills four
Police have detained a woman on suspicion of arson after a fire at an apartment block in Saarbruecken killed four people. Police yesterday said the 37-year-old was a resident of the building. The fire on Sunday in the five-story building killed four and injured at least 23. A 42-year-old man was severely injured when he jumped off the roof of the burning building. More than 100 firefighters were on the scene to rescue residents from their apartments. The fire apparently broke out on the first or second floor of the building and then quickly made its way to higher floors.
TURKEY
Tax evasion called ‘treason’
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said that businesspeople who move assets abroad are committing “treason,” adding that his government should put an end to the practice. “I am aware that some businessmen are attempting to place their assets overseas. I call on the government not to authorize any such moves, because these are acts of treason,” Erdogan said in televised comments to party members. He did not name names, but his comments came two days after prosecutors ordered the seizure of assets of a gold trader testifying in a New York trial against a banker accused of violating US sanctions against Iran.
UNITED KINGDOM
Half support new EU vote
Half of Britons support a second vote on whether to leave the EU and a third said they would be worse off financially outside the bloc, an opinion poll showed. The poll, published in the Mail on Sunday newspaper, showed that 34 percent rejected another referendum and 16 percent said they did not know. The newspaper said it was the first major opinion poll since last week’s media reports that Britain is preparing to pay about 50 billion euros (US$59.3 billion) to help to pave the way for talks on a future trade pact with the EU. The online poll, carried out by research firm Survation, interviewed 1,003 adults in Britain from Thursday to Friday last week.
GERMANY
Box of nails was blackmail
A suspicious package containing nails that led to a bomb scare at a Christmas market was part of a blackmailing plot against the delivery company DHL, German authorities said on Sunday. Brandenburg State Minister of the Interior Karl-Heinz Schroeter told reporters the package was part of a scheme to extort millions of euros from DHL. It was delivered on Friday to a pharmacy on the same street as the market in Potsdam and later destroyed in a controlled explosion. Schroeter said the market itself most likely was not a target. The person who sent the parcel was still at large, he said. The market was reopened on Saturday with an increased police presence.
UNITED STATES
Two stabbed over parking
A man angry about a parking dispute on Sunday stabbed two people and then drove into a group of pedestrians on a sidewalk in New York City, leaving one dead and several injured, one critically, police said. The altercation started at about 4:30am outside a hookah lounge, when the driver of a sedan got out of his car and stabbed two other people, New York Police Department Assistant Chief David Barrere said. A dispute ensued with others outside the club and the man drove his car up onto the sidewalk and into a crowd of people before leaving the scene, Barrere said. It was unclear if the pedestrians were involved in the dispute. Authorities said the driver was in custody.
HONG KONG
Flight crew spot missile
The crew of a Cathay Pacific flight from San Francisco to the territory reported seeing a North Korean ballistic missile break up and fall out of the sky last week, the airline has said. Flight trackers put the plane close to Japan around the time of Pyongyang’s Hwasong-15 missile test on Wednesday. The missile fell into the Sea of Japan. “The flight crew of CX893 reported a sighting of what is suspected to be the re-entry of the recent DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] test missile,” an airline spokesman said. “Though the flight was far from the event location, the crew advised Japan [air traffic control] according to procedures.” The South China Morning Post yesterday quoted Cathay Pacific general manager of operations Mark Hoey as saying the message from the pilots to ground staff was: “Be advised, we witnessed the DPRK missile blow up and fall apart near our current location.” A Cathay Pacific cargo plane — CX096 — might have been even closer to the missile, at a lateral distance of a few hundred meters, Hoey added.
AUSTRALIA
‘Kwaussie’ now key word
Inspired by a dual citizenship crisis plaguing the nation’s political world, the term “Kwaussie” — a mix of Kiwi and Aussie — was yesterday named word of the year. The portmanteau term referring to a person who is both Australian and a New Zealander had been used sparingly in the past, but took on a new lease of life when Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce found out in August that he also had Kiwi citizenship. “In a time of covfefe, fake news, and tweetstorms, the Australian National Dictionary Centre has looked for a word of the year that is both lexically interesting and Australian,” center director Amanda Laugesen said in a statement. “We were able to trace it back to print in a Wellington newspaper in 2002 referring to Russell Crowe.” The actor was born in New Zealand, but has long called Australia home.
INDIA
Rahul Gandhi seeks post
Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty, yesterday submitted nomination papers to succeed his mother as president of main opposition Congress party, which ruled the nation for decades. Without a serious rival for the top party post, he is set to be elected Dec. 16. He faces a challenging task of reinvigorating his party, which was ousted from power by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014. He is set to become the sixth member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to lead Congress.
JAPAN
Officials probing thefts
Officials yesterday said they were investigating a group of North Korean fishermen after items — reportedly including solar panels, a fridge, a television and an anime poster — disappeared from a remote island where they had taken shelter. The coast guard first spotted the group of 10’s rickety vessel off Hokkaido on Wednesday as it struggled during poor weather. They briefly landed on an uninhabited island to take refuge, but soon after the group left, officials noticed items from buildings on the island had vanished. A washing machine and blankets were also missing from a shelter facility for local fishermen, state broadcaster NHK reported. Meanwhile, the coast guard said three bodies were found off northern Yamagata Prefecture. NHK reported that one of the three wore a badge with a photograph of Kim Il-sung, who founded the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
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