SYRIA
Israeli missiles shot down
Air defense units shot down three Israeli missiles overnight on Monday that were targeting a military post near Damascus, state media reported yesterday. There was no Israeli comment on the incident. There was no word if the missiles hit their target or if there were any casualties. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack was an Israeli airstrike on the Damascus suburb of Jamraya, which is home to a government research center. In other news, television reports said a bomb blast yesterday killed eight people and injured 15 on a bus in Homs.
TURKEY
Academics go on trial
About 150 academics from universities in Istanbul went on trial yesterday on charges of engaging in “terrorist propaganda” for signing a declaration in January last year calling for an end to hostilities against Kurdish rebels in the southeast. Individual trials opened in various courts in Istanbul and were expected to last several months. They are accused of supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Human Rights Watch says the trials violate free speech and academic freedom.
UNITED STATES
Trump attacked over parks
Environmental groups hit President Donald Trump with a lawsuit just hours after he announced he would shrink two national monuments in Utah. The Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and seven other groups alleged that Trump overstepped his authority in scaling back the 566,560 hectare Bears Ears to about 89,031 hectares, and the 768,903 hectare Grand Staircase-Escalante national monument to about 404,686 hectares. They said the Antiquities Act of 1906 authorizes presidents to create national monuments, according to the complaint filed on Monday in federal court in Washington. “It does not authorize presidents to abolish them either in whole or in part, as President Trump’s action attempts to do.”
BELGIUM
Centeno to head eurozone
Portuguese Minister of Finance Mario Centeno has won the race to be the next voice of the 19-nation Eurozone. He came out on top after two rounds of voting and will succeed Dutchman Jeroen Dijsselbloem on Jan. 13. His term as president will last for two-and-a-half years. Centeno said he hoped to promote “inclusive” growth policies that would help “put an end to a period that was very difficult for Europe.”
UNITED STATES
‘House’ to focus on Wright
Production is scheduled to resume next year on the sixth and final season of House of Cards. Taping of the political drama was halted in October amid sexual misconduct allegations against star Kevin Spacey. Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos told a conference on Monday of the decision, Variety reported. Netflix last month said it would not be involved with the series if Spacey remained. The next eight-episode season will focus on co-star Robin Wright. No release date has been announced.
GERMANY
Wild boar attacks hunter
A hunter has died after being attacked by a wild boar he was trying to shoot, police said. The 50-year-old man was hunting on Sunday with a dozen others near the town of Greifswald when he was attacked by the male boar. Police say the man suffered serious injuries to his left thigh and fell into nearby water. Police say the boar’s whereabouts were unknown.
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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