FRANCE
Woman fights death claim
Jeanne Pouchain in 2017 received an official letter from the court of appeal in Lyon stating that she had died and asking her relatives to pay money she was alleged to have owed. She has been fighting the state ever since to prove that she is still alive. “I feel like I’m living a nightmare,” she said. “I’m alive for my husband, for my son, for my loved ones, for the people around me, but for the justice system, I’m dead.” The former boss of a cleaning firm said the mix-up appears to have started with a lawsuit filed years ago by a disgruntled former employee. Her lawyers have petitioned a court to grant a new hearing so they can present their case that their client is not dead. “The most important thing is to prove that I’m alive. To prove I exist,” Pouchain said. “I want the state to return my identity.”
CANADA
Meng sent death threats
Huawei Technologies Co chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟) has received multiple death threats, including bullets in the mail, while under house arrest in Vancouver, a court was told on Wednesday. The threats were revealed during testimony by Doug Maynard, chief operating officer of Lions Gate Risk Management, the company providing her security detail. Meng received “five or six” threatening letters at her residence in June and July last year, he said, adding that “sometimes there were bullets inside the envelopes.” The sender’s identity and possible motivation were not disclosed.
FRANCE
Tintin painting on sale
A painting of comic book hero Tintin that for years was kept folded in a drawer was due to go on sale at a Paris auction house yesterday, with an estimated sale price of more than 2 million euros (US$2.43 million). The painting by Belgian illustrator and comic book author Georges Remi, better known by his nom de plume Herge, was submitted to his editor as a proposed cover, but never used. Herge later gave it to Jean-Louis Casterman, heir to the publishing house that published his books. The image shows Tintin, in oriental dress and flanked by his dog, Snowy, hiding in a vase from a rampant red dragon.
UNITED STATES
Firms warned over pipeline
The Department of State this month told European companies that it suspects are helping to build Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that they face a risk of sanctions, a spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday. The department reached out to firms after Jan. 1, alerting them to the new sanctions risk after the Senate overrode President Donald Trump’s veto of a massive defense bill that contained punitive measures on the pipeline, the spokesperson said. The department was expected this week to issue a report on companies it believes are helping the Russia-to-Germany pipeline.
UNITED STATES
CIA releases UFO files
Thousands of documents from the CIA on unidentified flying objects were released this week in a document dump that the agency says includes all its records on UFOs. The documents are available on the Black Vault, an online archive of declassified government documents. About 2,700 pages were included in the dump. “The CIA has made it INCREDIBLY difficult to use their records in a reasonable manner,” Black Vault founder John Greenewald Jr wrote to Vice’s Motherboard. “This outdated format makes it very difficult for people to see the documents, and use them, for any research purpose.”
AUSTRALIA
Google blocks news sites
Google has started hiding news sites from some local users, in an experiment that comes amid Canberra’s push to compel tech firms to pay media outlets for their content. The government plans to force Google and Facebook to pay media organisations when their platforms host their content or face millions of dollars in fines. The “world first” rules, due to come into effect this year, have drawn the tech companies’ ire. The Australian Financial Review reported that Google was blocking several major commercial news outlets including its masthead, News Corp papers and the Guardian Australia from a small number of search users. A Google spokesman said that the changes were part of the “tens of thousands of experiments” that it runs.
PHILIPPINES
Duterte defends China jab
President Rodrigo Duterte defended his government’s decision to purchase Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines, saying that they are as good as the shots developed by the Americans and the Europeans. “The Chinese are not lacking in brains,” Duterte said in a late-night televised address on Wednesday. “The Chinese are bright. They would not venture [into producing vaccines] if it is not safe, sure and secure.” Duterte made the remarks as questions have been raised over the level of protection that Sinovac Biotech’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine can provide, after researchers in Brazil released late-stage clinical data showing efficacy that was lower than initially announced.
CHINA
Xi seeks Starbucks’ help
President Xi Jinping (習近平) encouraged former Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz and the coffee company to play a role in promoting US-China trade cooperation and bilateral ties, state media reported yesterday. State broadcaster CCTV said that Xi made the remarks in a message when replying to Schultz, who also holds the honorary title of Starbucks chairman emeritus.
HONG KONG
Curbs on BNO holders mulled
China is discussing whether to ban territory residents who hold special British passports from public office, the South China Morning Post reported. The proposal is intended as retaliation against the British government’s decision last year to create a pathway to citizenship for the more than 1 million residents in the territory who hold British National Overseas (BNO) passports, the newspaper said, citing unidentified sources. Chinese lawmakers were also mulling whether to deny BNO holders the right to vote in the territory, although the report said that there was disagreement over such a step.
NORTH KOREA
Congress ends with art show
Leader Kim Jong-un on Wednesday wrapped up a Workers’ Party congress at a mass indoor art performance, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported yesterday. Kim and other government officials packed into an indoor stadium in Pyongyang to watch performances from military and civilian art troupes and youth groups, mostly on themes of glorifying Kim’s leadership and reinforcing messaging from the congress, KCNA said. The performance was the latest in a series of large gatherings this week where Kim and the other attendees did not appear to wear masks or use other social distancing measures, according to images released by state media.
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
Ten cheetah cubs held in captivity since birth and destined for international wildlife trade markets have been rescued in Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. They were all in stable condition despite all of them having been undernourished and limping due to being tied in captivity for months, said Laurie Marker, founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which is caring for the cubs. One eight-month-old cub was unable to walk after been tied up for six months, while a five-month-old was “very malnourished [a bag of bones], with sores all over her body and full of botfly maggots which are under the
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
‘NO INTEGRITY’: The chief judge expressed concern over how the sentence would be perceived given that military detention is believed to be easier than civilian prison A military court yesterday sentenced a New Zealand soldier to two years’ detention for attempting to spy for a foreign power. The soldier, whose name has been suppressed, admitted to attempted espionage, accessing a computer system for a dishonest purpose and knowingly possessing an objectionable publication. He was ordered into military detention at Burnham Military Camp near Christchurch and would be dismissed from the New Zealand Defence Force at the end of his sentence. His admission and its acceptance by the court marked the first spying conviction in New Zealand’s history. The soldier would be paid at half his previous rate until his dismissal
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