RUSSIA
Fires threaten Arctic
Gigantic forest fires have regularly raged through Siberia’s vast expanse, but the magnitude of this year’s blazes has reached an exceptional level with fears of long-term effects on the environment. The fires, triggered by dry thunderstorms in temperatures higher than 30°C, were spread by strong winds, the Federal Forestry Agency said. Smoke has affected not only small settlements, but also major cities in Western Siberia and the Altai region, and disrupted air travel.
CYPRUS
Israelis to sue rape accuser
Israeli tourists released from custody after having been cleared of gang rape charges plan to sue the British woman who accused them, their lawyer said on Monday. Twelve young Israelis were arrested on July 12 after a 19-year-old British tourist said she was raped in a hotel in the resort town of Ayia Napa. Five of the accused were released on Thursday last week and the other seven on Sunday, as a police source said that the Briton was “facing charges of giving a false statement over an imaginary offense.” Cyprus-based Israeli lawyer Yaniv Habari said his clients would “pursue legal action against the person behind the false accusations that led to [their] being unjustly detained” for a week.
UNITED KINGDOM
Clown sparks cruise brawl
Media reported that six people were assaulted on board a cruise ship after a passenger dressed as a clown sparked a brawl. Richard Gaisford, an ITV journalist who was on board the cruise ship traveling from Bergen, Norway, to Southampton, said that security staff rushed to a buffet restaurant after the late-night melee. The brawl apparently started when a “passenger dressed as a clown” upset a group of other passengers, he said. A P&O Cruises spokesman said that all passengers had disembarked and police are investigating.
UNITED KINGDOM
Record temperature reached
The nation recorded its highest-ever temperature of 38.7°C in Cambridge on Thursday last week, the Met Office said on Monday, confirming an earlier provisional reading. The temperature was recorded at the University of Cambridge Botanic Garden, beating a previous record high of 38.5°C from August 2003. The office announced the result on Friday and on Monday said that it had been officially validated.
UNITED STATES
‘Souvenir’ launcher found
Security officers on Monday confiscated a missile launcher from a checked bag at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, with a Texas man saying it was a souvenir from Kuwait. “Fortunately the item was not a live device. It was confiscated and handed over to the state fire marshal for safe disposal. The man was permitted to catch his flight,” the Transportation Security Administration said.
BRAZIL
Arrests over gold theft
Police on Monday said that three people have been arrested over the theft of an estimated US$30 million of gold from Sao Paulo International Airport last week. Armed men impersonating federal police entered a warehouse at the airport on Friday afternoon, making off with more than 700kg of the precious metal. One of those detained worked at the airport and said that he had cooperated with the robbers after his family was kidnapped, local media reported. The gold, which had been en route to New York and Zurich, is still missing.
SINGAPORE
Robot whips up noodles
An engineering company has built a robot that can serve up a piping hot bowl of laksa, one of the city-state’s most well-known dishes, in just 45 seconds. The electric sous-chef, dubbed Sophie by its creators, can blanch noodles, add pre-cooked prawns and ladle spicy coconut soup at the rate of about 80 bowls per hour. “It’s excellent — I would say that there’s no difference between the one created by the robot and the one by the human,” said Paul Yong, a guest at Friday’s launch event catered by Orange Clove, which developed the machine with a local engineering company. Sophie would cut staffing for laksa stations from two chefs to one, with the human’s main role being to replenish the ingredients and keep the station clean.
HONG KONG
False PLA videos spike
Videos falsely claiming to show a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) crackdown against pro-democracy protesters have flooded social media over the past week, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) investigation that has debunked multiple posts showed. The videos, viewed millions of times, have compounded fears about China’s potential intervention. Some false posts appeared shortly after a Chinese Ministry of National Defense spokesman last week highlighted in a news conference a law that allows PLA troops to be deployed at the request of the Hong Kong Legislative Council. One false video showed footage of PLA troops walking through a train station alongside a claim that they were “entering Hong Kong.” By yesterday afternoon, the video had been viewed more than 1.4 millions times. AFP found that the video was actually filmed in China.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
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