INDONESIA
Tiger caught after killing
An escaped white Bengal tiger that killed a Sinka Zoo keeper was found on Saturday, wandering in the jungle near the town of Singkawang, West Kalimantan, police said. Another tiger that broke free was shot dead earlier. “We found and captured the second tiger by sedating it with a tranquillizer,” local police chief Prasetiyo Adhi Wibowo said. The pair of 18-month-old female Bengal tigers escaped from the zoo after days of torrential rain created a hole near their enclosure. A 47-year-old male zookeeper and several animals were found dead near the tiger cage.
SAUDI ARABIA
Armed drone intercepted
An armed drone launched towards the kingdom by Yemen’s Houthis was intercepted, state media said yesterday, a day after the US moved to delist the rebels as a terrorist group. The Saudi-led military coalition “intercepted and destroyed an armed drone,” spokesman Turki al-Maliki said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. “It was launched systematically and deliberately by the terrorist Houthi militia to target civilians and civilian objects in the south of the region.” The incident was not immediately claimed by the Houthis.
UNITED KINGDOM
Beijing boycott urged
Senior political figures have called on the country’s athletes to boycott next year’s Beijing Winter Olympics in response to widespread human rights abuses in China. Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey and Labour lawmaker Chris Bryant said that the government and the British Olympic Association should act. “The evidence that a genocide is now occurring in western China is so clear that the UK and the whole world must now stand up to Beijing and use every available tool to stop it,” Davey said. “All five categories of genocide behavior, according to the Genocide Convention, are already in play in Xinjiang province. So I think it’s just extraordinary that the British government seems to have no backbone about it,” Bryant said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Thinnest house up for sale
Blink and you could easily miss it. Wedged between a doctor’s surgery and a hairdressing salon, London’s thinnest house is only identified by a streak of dark blue paint, but the five-floor house in Shepherd’s Bush, which is 1.6m at its narrowest point, is on the market for ￡950,000 (US$1.3 million). The property, originally a Victorian hat shop with storage for merchandise and living quarters on its upper floors, was built some time in the late 19th or early 20th century. The house still has an old-fashioned glass shopfront. David Myers, an assistant sales manager at Winkworth estate agents, which is selling the property, said that it is worth its price tag because “it’s a bit of London magic.”
UNITED STATES
Napping man ingests earbud
A man is warning people against using headphones while falling asleep after healthcare workers had to remove a wireless earbud from his esophagus. Worcester, Massachusetts, resident Brad Gauthier, who detailed his experience on Facebook, went to bed on Monday listening to music. He woke up on Tuesday, shoveled snow for about an hour, and then went inside to take a sip of water, but it would not go down, and he had to lean over to drain it from his throat. Gauthier also noticed he was missing one of his two wireless earbuds, which he said typically uses as he falls asleep. An X-ray at a local emergency clinic revealed that he had swallowed the earbud.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
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