FRANCE
Death livestream blocked
Facebook has blocked a terminally ill French euthanasia campaigner from livestreaming his own death. Alain Cocq, who has been suffering for 34 years from a rare and incurable degenerative disease, said he would find another way to broadcast his death. He has stopped taking food, drink or medicine, and says he wants his death to be seen to help persuade French authorities to lift a ban on medically assisted suicide. “While we respect Alain’s decision to draw attention to this important issue, we are preventing live broadcasts on his account based on the advice of experts that the depiction of suicide attempts could be triggering and promote more self-harm,” Facebook said in a statement.
UNITED STATES
Trump parade flounders
A Texas boat parade in support of President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign ran into trouble on Saturday, as multiple vessels took on water or sank, authorities said. The Travis County Sheriff’s Office “responded to multiple calls involving boats in distress,” it wrote on Twitter. “Several boats did sink.” No injuries or medical emergencies were reported. “Some were taking on water, some were stalled, some were capsizing, it was all types of different things,” sheriff’s office spokeswoman Kristen Dark said. Photographs on Twitter showed boats flying “Trump 2020” flags in choppy water, likely caused by the large number of vessels moving closely together.
UNITED STATES
Harris distrusts Trump
Senator Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, said that she would not take President Donald Trump’s word alone on any potential coronavirus vaccine. In an interview excerpt broadcast by CNN on Saturday, Harris said that Trump had a track record of suppressing expert opinion about the COVID-19 pandemic. “I would not trust Donald Trump,” Harris said, saying she would be convinced of the efficacy of a vaccine only if someone credible were vouching for it as well. “He’s looking at an election coming up ... and he’s grasping for whatever he can get to pretend he can be a leader on this issue when he’s not,” she said.
UNITED STATES
Fox reporter must go: Trump
President Donald Trump has demanded that Fox News fire its national security correspondent after she confirmed claims that he had disparaged the military. Trump came under fire after The Atlantic magazine reported that he had called marines killed in action in World War I “losers” and “suckers” in connection with a November 2018 visit to France when he skipped a visit to a US military cemetery. “Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting. Never even called us for comment. @FoxNews is gone!” Trump tweeted late on Friday. “I can tell you that my sources are unimpeachable,” Griffin said on-air on Saturday on her network. “My sources are not anonymous to me and I doubt they are anonymous to the president.”
UNITED STATES
Protesters lob fire bombs
Protesters in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday night threw fire bombs at police and at least one person was injured, police said, on the 100th day of demonstrations in the Oregon city over racial injustice and police brutality. Police described what they called “tumultuous and violent conduct” by protesters on the city’s Southeast Stark Street. “There were hundreds at the beginning [of Saturday night’s demonstrations]. Arrests have been made, yes,” police said in a statement.
JAPAN
Snap elections likely
The country’s next prime minister could call a snap general election shortly after taking office next week, a senior member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) said yesterday, Kyodo News reported. “Seeking a public mandate with a new Cabinet that is fresh and enjoys high public support is one option on timing,” LDP General Council chief Shunichi Suzuki said on a TV program, Kyodo reported. After forming a Cabinet, the new leader could immediately dissolve the lower house and call a snap election, Suzuki said. The LDP is to elect a new leader on Monday next week to replace Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who on Aug. 28 abruptly announced his intention to resign. The lower house of parliament is expected to convene on Wednesday next week to choose a new prime minister, which is virtually guaranteed to be the LDP president because of the party’s majority in the chamber. Yoshihide Suga, Abe’s chief Cabinet secretary and long-time loyal supporter, is the frontrunner to win the leadership vote and become the next prime minister.
AUSTRIA
Man breaks ice cube record
An Austrian man on Saturday beat his own record for the longest full-body contact with ice cubes. Josef Koeberl managed to stay 2 hours, 30 minutes and 57 seconds inside a custom-made glass box filled up to his shoulders with ice cubes. More than 200kg of ice cubes were needed to fill up the box, after Koeberl stepped inside wearing nothing but swim trunks. To fight the “wave of pain” caused by the freezing temperatures, Koeberl said he was trying to focus on positive emotions. “I’m fighting the pain by visualizing and drawing on positive emotions so I can dampen this wave of pain,” Koeberl told reporters. “That way I can endure.” A small crowd of people watched on as Koeberl beat his own record from last year by 30 minutes on the town square of Melk in Lower Austria. After being taken out of the ice box by helpers he said that the sun felt “really great” on his back.
NORTH KOREA
Kim tours storm-hit area
The country’s leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday toured coastal areas hit by a typhoon, and ordered 12,000 core party members to join the recovery effort, state media reported yesterday. State-run television KRT carried footage of Kim convening a meeting with officials and walking in the typhoon-hit area. More than 1,000 houses were destroyed in coastal areas of South and North Hamgyong provinces, the Korean Central News Agency said, adding that farmland and some public buildings had been inundated.
HONG KONG
‘Mulan’ boycott urged
Democracy advocates are calling for a boycott of Disney’s live-action Mulan remake, citing a social media post from the lead actress in support of the territory’s police. Pro-democracy advocates from Hong Kong to Thailand highlighted a social media post last year by Liu Yifei (劉亦菲), who stars as the titular character, that voiced support for the police. They are urging people to avoid the film, which launched on the Disney+ streaming platform on Friday. “Because Disney kowtows to Beijing, and because Liu Yifei openly and proudly endorses police brutality in Hong Kong, I urge everyone who believes in human rights to #BoycottMulan,” democracy advocate Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) tweeted.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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