NEW ZEALAND
Troops sent to Solomons
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday deployed peacekeepers to join an international mission to maintain security in the Solomon Islands. “We are deeply concerned by the recent civil unrest and rioting in Honiara, and following yesterday’s request of the Solomon Island government, we have moved quickly to provide urgent assistance to help restore sustained peace and security,” Ardern said in a statement. An initial deployment of 15 military personnel is to depart today, and 50 more this weekend, she said.
SRI LANKA
Cooking gas blasts probed
Parliament yesterday convened a committee to probe dozens of unexplained cooking gas explosions around the country. Following police and media reports of about 14 explosions in a single day, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Tuesday appointed an eight-member committee to investigate and provide a report within two weeks. Minister of Consumer Affairs Lasantha Alagiyawanna told lawmakers that on average 10 explosions were being reported daily. Restaurant owner Milinda Premachandra said that his wife sustained severe burns when the cooker in their small eatery in Colombo exploded. “My wife will never be the same again. The authorities must do something soon,” he said.
ISRAEL
Tel Aviv ranked priciest city
Tel Aviv is the world’s most expensive city to live in, a survey published yesterday by the Economist Intelligence Unit found. For the first time, the Israeli city climbed five rungs to the top of the Worldwide Cost of Living Index. The index is compiled by comparing prices in US dollars for goods and services in 173 cities. Paris and Singapore shared second, followed by Zurich and Hong Kong. New York was in sixth, with Geneva, Switzerland, in seventh. Rounding off the top 10 were Copenhagen in eighth, followed by Los Angeles and Osaka, Japan.
SWITZERLAND
One-third not netizens: UN
About 2.9 billion people — 37 percent of the world’s population — have never used the Internet, the UN said on Tuesday. The International Telecommunication Union estimated that 96 percent of those 2.9 billion live in developing countries. The agency said that the estimated number of people who have gone online rose from 4.1 billion in 2019 to 4.9 billion this year, partially due to a “COVID-19 connectivity boost,” but even among those Internet users, many hundreds of millions might only go online infrequently, using shared devices or facing connection speeds that hamper their Internet use.
CANADA
Cactus toy raps about drugs
A rapping cactus toy, marketed as educational, might teach children more than is appropriate, as a woman in Brampton, Ontario, discovered. The cactus that Ania Tanner bought sings in English, Spanish and Polish as it gyrates to a beat. After buying it for her granddaughter, Tanner found that one of the songs was an explicit tune about cocaine. “I am Polish, and when I started to listen to the songs ... I was in shock,” she told CTV News. The cactus performs Gdzie Jest Biay Wgorz? (Zejcie), or Where Is the White Eel? (Descent), which opens with: “The only thing in my head is 5g of cocaine / Fly away alone, to the edge of oblivion.” Spokesman Zbigniew Florek said that rapper Cypis had “no idea” the song was being used in a children’s toy. “He’s disgusted,” Florek said. Walmart has since removed the listing for the toy.
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
CHEER ON: Students were greeted by citizens who honked their car horns or offered them food and drinks, while taxi drivers said they would give marchers a lift home Hundreds of students protesting graft they blame for 15 deaths in a building collapse on Friday marched through Serbia to the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to block three Danube River bridges this weekend. They received a hero’s welcome from fellow students and thousands of local residents in Novi Said after arriving on foot in their two-day, 80km journey from Belgrade. A small red carpet was placed on one of the bridges across the Danube that the students crossed as they entered the city. The bridge blockade planned for yesterday is to mark three months since a huge concrete construction