AUSTRALIA
Pell files High Court appeal
Disgraced Cardinal George Pell yesterday lodged an appeal with the High Court against his child sex abuse convictions, an official in Canberra said. It is the final avenue of appeal for the 78-year-old — who is serving a six-year sentence for sexually assaulting two choirboys in the 1990s — to get out of jail and clear his name. The former Vatican treasurer who once helped elect popes last month lost an appeal in Victoria State’s Court of Appeal in a landmark decision that saw the judges split in a 2-1 verdict. There is no guarantee that the High Court will agree to consider Pell’s case. The nation’s most senior judges will now deliberate on whether to allow the appeal to proceed, a process that could take months.
SLOVAKIA
PM survives no-confidence
Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini yesterday survived a parliamentary no-confidence vote over alleged contacts between a senior government official and a controversial businessman linked to a slain investigative journalist. Only 62 lawmakers in the 150-seat Parliament voted to dismiss Pellegrini. His dismissal would mean the end of his coalition government. The vote was requested by the opposition after media reports that the businessman, Marian Kocner, frequently exchanged text messages with Monika Jankovska, state secretary at the Ministry of Justice. Jankovska denied she knew Kocner, but has resigned from her post.
UNITED KINGDOM
Swimmer in 54-hour feat
US breast cancer survivor Sarah Thomas yesterday became the first person to swim across the Channel four times non-stop in a 54-hour feat of endurance. Thomas, 37, could be seen in a video posted on Facebook arriving at Dover on the southern English coast with a group of supporters cheering her on. “I feel a little sick,” she is heard saying in the video. In a post on Saturday before setting off, Thomas wrote: “This swim is dedicated to all the survivors out there... This is for those of us who have prayed for our lives, who have wondered with despair about what comes next, and have battled through pain and fear to overcome.” Thomas completed treatment for cancer a year ago.
FRANCE
Migrants leaving camp
Police yesterday were evacuating at least 900 migrants from a gym and a nearby tent camp near the English Channel, citing concerns about security and hygiene. A spokesman for the Nord region said the migrants being removed from the town of Grande Synthe include an unspecified number of children with their families. Local media said the migrants include many Kurds from Iraq. A court this month ordered the migrants removed to stem violence and human trafficking in the neighborhood. The spokesman said the migrants are being taken to temporary shelters and allowed to apply for asylum.
THAILAND
Giant panda dies at 19
Chiang Mai Zoo staff yesterday donned black-and-white clothing and observed a minute of silence to mourn the sudden death of a popular male giant panda on loan from China. Officials said Chuang Chuang collapsed on Monday in his enclosure shortly after standing up following a meal of bamboo leaves. Staff said they found no sign of illness or injury on the 19-year-old panda’s body, and that he had recently passed a health exam. Chuang Chuang and his female mate arrived in Chiang Mai in 2003 on a 10-year loan that was later extended for another 10 years.
ECUADOR
Most people’s data leaked
Almost the entire population had their personal data leaked online, security experts said on Monday. An estimated 17 million people had their data exposed by a breach on an unsecured server run by a marketing and analytics firm. “The information that I can share with you at this moment is that this is a very delicate issue,” Minister of the Interior Maria Paula Romo said. Security firm vpnMentor uncovered the breach on a server run by the firm Novaestrat, which included citizens’ full names, dates and places of birth, education levels, telephone numbers and national ID card numbers.
UNITED STATES
Trump blocks testimonies
President Donald Trump ordered two former White House aides not to testify at a House of Representatives committee hearing yesterday as the panel considers whether to recommend impeaching Trump. Former White House deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn and former staff secretary Rob Porter were subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee to appear at the hearing on possible obstruction of justice by Trump. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone said the Department of Justice had determined that the two are “immune from compelled congressional testimony with respect to matters related to their service as senior advisers to the president.”
UNITED STATES
Refusing gay couples OKed
Two Arizona artists who refused to create invitations to same-sex weddings due to their Christian beliefs were within their legal rights, the state’s Supreme Court ruled on Monday. The decision invalidates previous judgements against the two women for breaching a Phoenix “human relations ordinance.” According to their lawyers, the two artists could have faced up to six months in prison and a US$2,500 fine each time they refused to make invitations to gay weddings. While the judges did not generalize their ruling to cover all commercial activity, gay rights advocates said that it set the stage for further legal battles.
UNITED STATES
Girl dies from amoeba
A 10-year-old girl has died in the hospital, her family said in a statement on Monday, after she contracted a rare brain-eating amoeba while swimming in a Texas river. Lily Mae Avant swam in a river and lake over the Labor Day holiday weekend, then developed a headache and a fever the following weekend. The Texas Department of State Health Services said that she had primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, a brain infection caused by the amoeba Naegleria fowleri. “The amoeba is present in fresh water across Texas and elsewhere in the US,” department spokesman Chris Van Deusen told TV station KWTX. “Cases are extremely rare.”
MEXICO
Developer held over death
A member of one of the nation’s wealthiest families was arrested on manslaughter charges after his 11-year-old son died on a family boating trip in the San Francisco Bay, police said on Monday. Javier A. Burillo, 57, was arrested on Sunday in Belvedere on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter with a vessel, willful harm or injury to a child, and operating a boat while under the influence, Tiburon Police Chief Michael Cronin said. Burillo was driving the boat with his two sons aboard when both fell into open waters. Burillo helped bring the two back aboard and transported them to the Corinthian Yacht Club, where the 11-year-old was pronounced dead, he added.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate
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