GERMANY
Stuck fat rat rescued
A nine-person rescue operation was organized in the town of Bensheim after a fat rat became stuck trying to squeeze through a small gap in a manhole cover on Sunday afternoon. The Auerbach volunteer fire brigade was called in to help a man from the Rhein Neckar animal rescue team, and together they were able to raise the cover and pull the rat free. Two young girls later rewarded the animal rescue team with a drawing of a rat surrounded by hearts, and Danke (thanks) written on it.
Photo: Reuters / Berufstierrettung Rhein Neckar
IRELAND
Crusader’s head stolen
Vandals have stolen the head of an 800-year-old mummified body known as the “Crusader” from a crypt in St Michan’s Church in Dublin, police and Church of Ireland officials said on Tuesday. Several other mummies in the crypt, including the 400-year-old remains of a nun, were also desecrated in the incident, while the chamber itself was badly damaged, the church said. “I would appeal to those responsible to examine their consciences and return the head of the crusader to its rightful place,” Archbishop of Dublin Michael Jackson said.
IRAN
Zarif resignation rejected
President Hassan Rouhani yesterday rejected Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif’s resignation, which he submitted on Monday. “I believe your resignation is against the country’s interests and do not approve it,” Rouhani wrote in a letter to Zarif posted on the government’s official Web site. “I consider you ... to be ‘trustworthy, brave and pious’ and in the forefront of resistance against America’s all-out pressure.”
UNITED STATES
Rain prompts evacuation
Torrential rain from a winter storm that has also dumped heavy snow in mountainous areas prompted California authorities to order mandatory evacuations for two dozen small communities north of San Francisco. The town of Guerneville, population 4,500, was the largest ordered to evacuate. The river was expected to crest last night at 14m. “We’re definitely in high concern mode,” Sonoma County Sheriff’s Sergeant Spencer Crum said.
VENEZUELA
Guaido vows to return soon
National Assembly President and self-declared interim president Juan Guaido said he would return home from Colombia soon to mobilize new protests against President Nicholas Maduro. Guaido spoke on Tuesday after meeting officials from the Lima Group and US Vice President Mike Pence in Bogota.
ANTARCTICA
Iceberg set to calve
An iceberg about twice the size of New York City is set to calve, or break away, from the Brunt ice shelf as a result of a rapidly spreading rift, known as a Halloween crack, that is being monitored by NASA. A crack along part of the ice shelf is spreading east and set to intersect with another fissure that was apparently stable for the past 35 years, but is now accelerating north at a rate of about 4km a year. Once the two rifts meet, which could happen within weeks, an iceberg of at least 1,709km2 is likely to calve.
AUSTRALIA
Refugee children leave Nauru
The remaining refugee children detained on the Pacific island of Nauru departed yesterday on a flight bound for the US, asylum-seeker advocates said. The Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) said that 19 refugees, including four children, were aboard the flight. The camps have come under fierce criticism, with reports of abuse, suicide and despondency. “Despite claims by [Prime Minister] Scott Morrison... that all refugee children were off Nauru, it is only after the flight to the US today that the claim can be truthfully made,” RAC spokesman Ian Rintoul said.
AUSTRALIA
Meth chemical haul seized
Authorities say they have seized chemicals that could have been used to make 1.27 tonnes of methamphetamine and arrested four men in a joint operation with China. The Federal Police said they seized enough of the precursor ephedrine to make methamphetamine with a street value of nearly A$700 million (US$502 million). Border authorities intercepted a container arriving from China labeled as ceramic tiles and glue, but which police say contained 260 bags of ephedrine. Police say they switched the ephedrine with an inert substance and delivered the consignment. Two of those arrested are from Melbourne and two are Chinese nationals.
INDONESIA
Mine collapse buries dozens
One person was killed and dozens more were buried in the collapse of an illegal gold mine on Sulawesi, the Disaster Management Agency said yesterday. Rescuers scrambled to find survivors in the rubble after the collapse triggered a landslide on Tuesday evening, the agency said. At least one person was found dead and 15 others were injured, a statement said. “When dozens of people were mining for gold at this location, suddenly beams and supporting boards broke due to unstable soil conditions,” agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said. “It is estimated that as many as 60 people are buried under the landslide.”
THAILAND
Two police seized, shot dead
Two policemen were executed after being abducted from a tea shop in the southern borderlands, police said yesterday, as bloodshed again spikes in a 15-year insurgency. Tit-for-tat violence has spiraled in the past few weeks leaving imams and Buddhist monks dead, and hitting security forces protecting schools. About eight suspected militants on Tuesday stormed a tea shop in Narathiwat Province, Lieutenant Sarayuth Khotchawong said, adding: “The kidnappers abducted the two policemen, took their guns and forced them to get into a pick-up truck.” The bodies were found later a few hundred meters away.
NIGERIA
President gets second term
President Muhammadu Buhari early yesterday was declared the clear winner of Saturday last week’s election, after a campaign in which he urged voters to give him another chance to tackle corruption, widespread insecurity and an economy limping back from recession. While frustrated voters had said they wanted to give someone new a try, Buhari profited from his upright reputation in an oil-rich nation weary of politicians enriching themselves instead of the people. The electoral commission said in its official declaration before dawn that Buhari received 15.1 million votes, or 55 percent. Challenger Atiku Abubakar received 11.2 million, or 41 percent. The average national turnout was 35.6 percent, continuing a downward trend.
NEW STORM: investigators dubbed the attacks on US telecoms ‘Salt Typhoon,’ after authorities earlier this year disrupted China’s ‘Flax Typhoon’ hacking group Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday. The networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, along with other telecoms, were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data, the report said. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of Internet traffic, it said. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
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