INDONESIA
Recycling offers lifeline
A local non-profit group is offering help to Bali residents by exchanging rice for plastic trash that is then sold to a recycling company. The Bali Plastic Exchange was founded in May last year by I Made Janur Yasa, 55, who like many locals saw his vegan restaurant hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative has helped support about 40,000 families in 200 villages, while recycling nearly 544 tonnes of plastic waste, Yasa said. “Every piece of plastic waste is very valuable for the villagers today and for our economy,” said I Kadek Rai Nama Rupat, a souvenir seller who was trying to make up for lost business at his shop.
FRANCE
New virus cases hit record
Health authorities on Tuesday reported a record of 179,807 new confirmed COVID-19 cases in a 24-hour period, one of the highest one-day tallies worldwide. It is the highest number of new daily infections in Europe, Covidtracker.fr data showed. Only the US and India have reported average daily new cases of higher than 200,000. France’s previous record of 104,611 was set on Saturday, after the 86,852 high of Nov. 11 last year was broken with two consecutive days of more than 90,000 new cases per day at the end of last week. About 77 percent of the population is now fully vaccinated, which has sharply reduced the number of hospitalizations and deaths.
UGANDA
Prominent critic arrested
A prominent critic of President Yoweri Museveni who is also a satirical novelist and international literary award winner was detained on Tuesday, according to his lawyer and posts on his social media accounts. “Men with guns are breaking my door. They say they are police men but are not in uniform. I’ve locked myself inside,” Kakwenza wrote on Facebook. His lawyer, Eron Kiiza, later said that his client had been detained, but that he was yet find out where he was being held or by whom and for what reason. “We are searching everywhere for him right now,” he said.
ISRAEL
Man cannot travel until 9999
Noam Huppert, an Australian national living in Israel, has said that he is subject to an 8,000-year travel ban unless he pays an outstanding US$2.4 million in child support payments. The 44-year-old is not allowed to leave the country until Dec. 31, 9999, due to a 2013 “stay of exit” order handed down after a family court case was brought by his ex-wife, news.com.au reported. The court ruled that Huppert must pay 5,000 shekels (US$1,609) per month for each of his two children until they turn 18. It appears the year 9999 was arbitrarily set because it was the highest possible date allowed by the online system.
UNITED KINGDOM
Bitey squirrel has sad end
The tale of Stripe the squirrel began cheerfully enough with Corrine Reynolds, an animal lover in north Wales, feeding the creature titbits, but the story took an unfestive twist when Stripe — named after the sharp-toothed creature in the Christmas horror comedy Gremlins — began nipping at Reynolds and other neighbors. After the gray squirrel bit nearly 20 people in the town of Buckley, Reynolds caught it in a humane trap and had the animal taken away by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “In the space of 48 hours he attacked 18 people,” she said. One neighbor, Scott Felton, 34, said he had been having a cigarette out back when the squirrel pounced.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
IMPASSE: US President Donald Trump pressed to end the filibuster in a sign that he is unlikely to compromise despite Democrat offers for a delayed healthcare vote The US government shutdown stretched into its 40th day yesterday even as senators stayed in Washington for a grueling weekend session hoping to find an end to the funding fight that has disrupted flights nationwide, threatened food assistance for millions of Americans and left federal workers without pay. The US Senate has so far shown few signs of progress over a weekend that could be crucial for the shutdown fight. Republican leaders are hoping to hold votes on a new package of bills that would reopen the government into January while also approving full-year funding for several parts of government, but
TOWERING FIGURE: To Republicans she was emblematic of the excesses of the liberal elite, but lawmakers admired her ability to corral her caucus through difficult votes Nancy Pelosi, a towering figure in US politics, a leading foe of US President Donald Trump and the first woman to serve as US House of Representatives speaker, on Thursday announced that she would step down at the next election. Admired as a master strategist with a no-nonsense leadership style that delivered for her party, the 85-year-old Democrat shepherded historic legislation through the US Congress as she navigated a bitter partisan divide. In later years, she was a fierce adversary of Trump, twice leading his impeachment and stunning Washington in 2020 when she ripped up a copy of his speech to the
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