FRANCE
Scaffolding removal starts
Workers at Notre-Dame yesterday began the delicate task of removing tonnes of metal scaffolding that melted together during the fire that destroyed the roof and spire of the Paris cathedral on April 15 last year. Yesterday they conducted a final evaluation of the tangled tubing. Two teams of five workers each are to take turns descending on ropes into web of scaffolding to cut it apart. The chunks will then be lifted out by a crane. The project is expected to last through the summer.
Photo: AP
UNITED STATES
Colin Powell backs Biden
Former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell on Sunday endorsed former vice president Joe Biden’s presidential bid, becoming the first major Republican to publicly back President Donald Trump’s riv al ahead of November’s election. Powell said Trump has “drifted away” from the constitution and posed a danger the country and its democracy. “I cannot in any way support President Trump this year,” Powell told CNN. Asked if he would vote for Biden, he added: “I will be voting for him.” Powell, a Republican, endorsed former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid in 2016.
UNITED STATES
Key ‘NYT’ editor resigns
New York Times (NYT) editorial page editor James Bennet has resigned after publishing an opinion piece by Senator Tom Cotton, who urged military force against protesters nationwide. Bennet faced intense backlash after initially defending the column headlined “Send in The Military” as an example of the paper’s commitment to ideological diversity. The essay encouraged an “overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers.” About 800 NYT staffers signed a petition in protest of its publication, and Bennet later said he had not read the column before its publication.
MEXICO
Top official has COVID-19
The head of the Social Security Institute, Zoe Robledo, a close aide to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said on Sunday that he had tested positive for COVID-19 and would continue to work remotely. The 41-year-old Robledo is one of the most prominent public figures of the administration, and his announcement may renew concerns that the president is also at risk of contagion.
GUATEMALA
President to work remotely
President Alejandro Giammattei on Sunday said that 18 employees at his office and on his security detail have tested positive for COVID-19, so he would work remotely and the presidential offices would be disinfected. “I and the vice president will carry out our activities remotely. We’re healthy. We’ve been tested. We don’t have coronavirus,” he said in a televised address.
UNITED STATES
Lawyer in trouble again
Celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti allegedly violated the terms of his temporary release from jail during the COVID-19 pandemic by using a computer to write his own court filings. Avenatti is barred from using a computer, Los Angeles federal Attorney Nicola Hanna said on Sunday in a request for a probe into the matter.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
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