UAE
Briton’s sentence extended
A British former newspaper editor in Dubai who was convicted of killing his wife with a hammer has had his sentence extended to 15 years. Francis Matthew was in March found guilty of bludgeoning his wife to death at their home and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The latest verdict was announced yesterday after both sides had appealed. The former editor of the English-language Gulf News had faced the possibility of the death penalty over the killing in July last year of Jane Matthew, his wife of more than 30 years.
CAMEROON
Biya poised to win new term
Polls yesterday opened as Africa’s oldest head of state is widely expected to win another term, while separatists threatened to disrupt the election and many people who have fled unrest were unable to vote. President Paul Biya has held office since 1982 and has vowed to end the crisis. The fractured opposition has been unable to rally behind a strong challenger to the 85-year-old leader. A victory would likely come with a weakened mandate for Biya as many residents of the troubled English-speaking Southwest and Northwest regions have fled elsewhere. The government has said that anyone who tries to organize chaos on election day “risks being disagreeably surprised.”
CHINA
Two killed in car attack
Authorities in Zhejiang Province said that two people were killed and 16 wounded after a knife-wielding man drove a vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians on Saturday night. The suspected assailant, identified only by his surname, Wang (王), was apparently enraged by a “personal conflict” when he committed the attack, the Beilun District Government in Ningbo said in a statement on its microblog. It said that the case is under investigation. No other details were given.
NAURU
MSF ordered to cease work
The government has ordered Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to cease its work on the island treating asylum seekers and locals suffering from mental health problems, MSF said. The country has come under fire over the treatment of asylum seekers, including children, who are housed in Australian-funded refugee detention camps under a deal to prevent boat people from setting foot on Australian shores. “The Nauruan government informed Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without borders that our services were ‘no longer required’ and requested that our activities cease within 24 hours,” an MSF spokesman said in a statement on Saturday. There was no immediate comment from the government. The Australian Department of Home Affairs said that the decision was Nauru’s to make, but added that Canberra “continues to provide appropriate healthcare and mental health support to refugees and asylum seekers through contracted service providers.”
CHINA
Editor’s visa denial defended
The government has defended its refusal to renew the work visa of a Financial Times editor in Hong Kong. The central government “firmly supports” the territory’s rejection of Asia editor Victor Mallet’s visa renewal application, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ office in Hong Kong said in a statement late on Saturday. “No foreign country has any right to interfere,” the office said in response to expressions of concern from the British Foreign and Commonwealth
PORTUGAL
Hundreds battle wildfire
More than 700 firefighters yesterday were battling a wildfire in a national park west of Lisbon that forced authorities to evacuate about 350 people. The fire that broke out overnight on Saturday injured 17 firefighters and one civilian, Andre Fernandes of the civil protection agency said yesterday. Firefighters on the ground were being supported by 225 vehicles and six aerial fire-fighting units. Fernandes said firefighters were combating the fire on two fronts, and their efforts were being helped by a decrease in the winds that had fanned the flames during the night.
HAITI
Quake kills at least 11
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck just off the northwest coast late on Saturday, killing at least 11 people, injuring more than 100 and damaging buildings, authorities said. The epicenter of the quake was located about 19km northwest of the city of Port-de-Paix, the US Geological Survey said. Port-de-Paix, Gros-Morne, the town of Chansolme and the northern island of Tortuga were among the areas worst hit, the civil protection agency said in a statement. President Jovenel Moise issued a message on Twitter, urging people to remain calm and saying that local and regional authorities were assisting those in need.
VATICAN CITY
McCarrick study approved
Pope Francis has authorized a “thorough study” of Vatican archives into how now ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick advanced through church ranks despite allegations that he slept with seminarians and young priests, the Vatican said Saturday in its first response to explosive allegations of a cover-up. The statement did not address specific allegations that Francis himself knew of sexual misconduct allegations against now McCarrick in 2013 and rehabilitated him anyway from sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI. The study refers only to documentation, a potentially limiting constraint, given the McCarrick scandal apparently involves verbal communications that might not have paper trails in the archives.
CANADA
Sister prompts lottery find
Montreal resident Gregorio De Santis cleaning out a closet at his sister’s insistence received a shock when he found, in the lining of a jacket, a lottery ticket purchased 10 months earlier. Thanks to his sister telling him it was time to go through his bulging closet and donate unused old clothing to a charity, on Friday he pocketed winnings of C$1.75 million (US$1.35 million). “When he went to have the ticket validated, he thought the number on the display screen was C$1,750,” Loto-Quebec said in a statement about De Santis’ big day. “When he realized how much he had won, he says his heart almost stopped!” De Santis said he plans to use his winnings to bolster his retirement account, and take his nephew to some hockey games.
UNITED STATES
Couple repeat wife-load win
More than 30 teams from Maine to California on Saturday participated in the North American Wife Carrying Championship. The event at the Sunday River ski resort in Newry, Maine, featured male competitors completing a 254m obstacle course while carrying a woman. It is based on a Finnish event. Jesse Wall and Christine Arsenault won the event and received Arsenault’s weight in beer, and five times her weight in cash. It was their second win, earning them another trip to the world championships in Finland.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘KAMPAI’: It is said that people in Japan began brewing rice about 2,000 years ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol Traditional Japanese knowledge and skills used in the production of sake and shochu distilled spirits were approved on Wednesday for addition to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a committee of the UN cultural body said It is believed people in the archipelago began brewing rice in a simple way about two millennia ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol. By about 1000 AD, the imperial palace had a department to supervise the manufacturing of sake and its use in rituals, the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association said. The multi-staged brewing techniques still used today are
RSS