PHILIPPINES
Typoon forces evacuations
Thousands of people were yesterday evacuated from their homes in storm-battered parts of the nation as the third typhoon in as many weeks barreled toward the country. Typhoon Vamco was expected to graze Catanduanes Island before making landfall on Luzon later yesterday or early today. Destructive winds and torrential rain are expected in parts of central and southern Luzon, the state weather forecaster said. About 50,000 people living in the typhoon’s path would be ordered to leave their homes, said Gremil Alexis Naz, spokesman for the Office of Civil Defense in the Bicol region.
MYANMAR
Opposition disputes vote
A military-backed opposition party yesterday said that it would not recognize the results of Sunday’s general election and urged authorities to hold another vote. The Union Solidarity and Development Party told a news conference the vote was conducted unfairly and the party had asked the election commission for a re-run. The ruling National League for Democracy, led by Burmese State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, has established a clear lead in early results and the party has claimed victory overall, citing its own unofficial tally.
SOUTH KOREA
Spy boss suggests summit
National Intelligence Service Director Park Jie-won has proposed a summit of the leaders of the US, Japan and the two Koreas during the Tokyo Olympics next year, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported yesterday. Park made the proposal in Japan, where he arrived on Sunday for his first trip as head of the NIS aimed at improving relations strained by a feud over compensation for Koreans forced to work for Japanese firms during its colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula. Park suggested the summit during a meeting on Tuesday with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, saying that it could take up the issues of North Korea’s denuclearisation and the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korean agents, the newspaper said.
AUSTRALIA
Poppies light up opera house
Poppies yesterday illuminated the sails of the Sydney Opera House at dawn as the nation marked the 102nd anniversary of Remembrance Day. As the sun rose, a lone bugler played the Last Post to mark the end of World War I and to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the line of duty. The guns fell silent at 11am on Nov. 11, 1918, after more than four years of war. Services were also held nationwide. Prime Minister Scott Morrison laid a wreath at a Remembrance Day service in Canberra.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Trump’ visible in Biden note
The government on Tuesday blamed a “technical error” for an embarrassing gaffe in which US President Donald Trump’s faded-out name appeared in a congratulatory online statement to US president-elect Joe Biden. Sharp-eyed Twitter users spotted the words “Trump,” “the future” and “second term” faintly hidden in the graphic posted on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s official account to mark Biden’s election triumph. “As you’d expect, two statements were prepared in advance for the outcome of this closely contested election,” a Downing Street spokesman said. “A technical error meant that parts of the alternative message were embedded in the background of the graphic.”
HUNGARY
Gay adoption ban pursued
The government has drafted legislation that would practically ban adoption by same-sex couples in what rights groups have said is an attack on the LGBTQ community when COVID-19 means that they cannot protest. The bill was submitted late on Tuesday to parliament to shore up support for the government, just before tough COVID-19 restrictions took effect yesterday. “The timing is no coincidence: The proposals that severely limit legal rights and go against basic international and European human rights ... were submitted at a time when ... protests are not allowed,” the Hatter rights group said.
FRANCE
Ex-Vatican envoy on trial
Pope Francis’s former envoy to the nation on Tuesday went on trial in Paris for sexual assault following accusations that he groped five men during public ceremonies. Luigi Ventura, a 75-year-old Italian archbishop, was not in court for the proceedings, where the prosecution sought a 10-month suspended jail sentence. Ventura’s lawyer, Solange Doumic, said that his client’s doctor had advised him against traveling due to the health risks posed by COVID-19. The allegations against Ventura caused deep embarrassment for the Vatican when they surfaced in February last year. He was stripped of his diplomatic immunity in July last year so that he could be put on trial — a first for a Vatican envoy.
GERMANY
‘No proof’ against Thai king
The government has found no evidence that Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn has done anything illegal while living there, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur said, citing a Federal Foreign Office statement. Vajiralongkorn has spent most of his time over the past several years in the nation. Thousands of Thai protesters last month submitted a letter to the nation’s embassy in Bangkok, asking authorities to probe whether he has exercised royal authority during his time there, a breach of local law. “The German government has no reliable evidence that the Thai king has taken any such decisions during his stay,” the ministry said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Nude of feminist decried
A monument to feminist Mary Wollstonecraft was unveiled in London on Tuesday, prompting criticism from some who slammed the nude design. Wollstonecraft was an early feminist thinker whose 1792 book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman called for women to have equal rights. Artist Maggi Hambling created the sculpture of a small female nude figure. Some questioned whether a nude figure would have been used for a monument to a man. Hambling told the Evening Standard that she did not want to depict the writer in period clothing, as “she’s everywoman and clothes would have restricted her.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion