AUSTRALIA
Pilots making errors: memo
Some Qantas pilots are making mistakes as they return from long breaks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, an internal memo reported yesterday by Australian media said. Among the errors listed in Qantas pilot reports were starting takeoff with the parking brake on and misreading the altitude as airspeed, a report by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age said. It also cited switches in cockpit panels being in the wrong position, and crew looking back at an event and “not realizing that they were overloaded or had lost situational awareness.” The memo by Qantas’ fleet operations chiefs reportedly said that the COVID-19 related disruption to flights meant pilots had less recent flight experience, a requirement known as “recency.” As a result, the memo is quoted as saying, expert pilots “experienced a subsequent reduction in cognitive capacity.”
PERU
President faces prosecution
Prosecutors on Tuesday said that they would investigate President Pedro Castillo when his term ends for the alleged crimes of influence peddling, collusion and illegal sponsorship. Attorney general Zoraida Avalos Rivera “opened a preliminary investigation” into the president “for allegedly committing the crimes” of aggravated influence peddling, as perpetrator, and collusion, as participant, the agency said in a statement. The proceedings will be suspended until Castillo’s five-year term ends in 2026, as the president has “absolute immunity that transcends the scope of criminal proceedings.”
UNITED STATES
Twins split by new year
In years to come, Aylin and Alfredo Trujillo, who were born over New Year’s, might feel that they stand out in a crowd because they are twins. They will certainly have a tale to tell about their birthdays, which fall on different days, months and years. “It was a surprise,” their mother, Fatima Madrigal, 28, told reporters on Tuesday in an interview from Greenfield, California. At 11.45pm on New Year’s Eve on Friday, Fatima Madrigal gave birth to a son Alfredo Antonio Trujillo in Salinas, California. Fifteen minutes later, as the clock struck midnight and hospital staff rang in the new year, his sister Aylin arrived. The twins were more than two weeks early, as Madrigal’s due date was Jan. 16. Madrigal said her partner, Robert Trujillo, and their other three children, aged 11, three and one, were over the moon with the new arrivals. “I was kind of shocked because twins don’t run in my family, nor in my partner’s family,” she said. “So we were really surprised that we got blessed with two babies, and it’s a boy and a girl, so we’re complete.” For now, the twins will celebrate their birthdays on the same day, Madrigal said.
UNITED STATES
Dog leads police to crash
First thought to be a lost dog, a German shepherd named Tinsley successfully led New Hampshire law enforcement to the site of its owner’s late-night rollover crash. Both of the truck’s occupants were seriously hurt, but thanks to Tinsley’s efforts, they quickly received medical assistance once police found the vehicle, WMUR-TV reported on Tuesday. “They could tell the dog was trying to show them something,” Lieutenant Daniel Baldassarre of the New Hampshire State Police said. “He kept trying to get away from them, but didn’t run away totally. It was kind of: ‘Follow me. Follow me.’ And they did that and you know, to their surprise to see the guardrail damaged and to look down to where the dog is looking at, it’s just, they were almost in disbelief.”
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children. The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive. “Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform. China’s
‘POLITICAL LOYALTY’: The move breaks with decades of precedent among US administrations, which have tended to leave career ambassadors in their posts US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered dozens of US ambassadors to step down, people familiar with the matter said, a precedent-breaking recall that would leave embassies abroad without US Senate-confirmed leadership. The envoys, career diplomats who were almost all named to their jobs under former US president Joe Biden, were told over the phone in the past few days they needed to depart in the next few weeks, the people said. They would not be fired, but finding new roles would be a challenge given that many are far along in their careers and opportunities for senior diplomats can
RUSHED: The US pushed for the October deal to be ready for a ceremony with Trump, but sometimes it takes time to create an agreement that can hold, a Thai official said Defense officials from Thailand and Cambodia are to meet tomorrow to discuss the possibility of resuming a ceasefire between the two countries, Thailand’s top diplomat said yesterday, as border fighting entered a third week. A ceasefire agreement in October was rushed to ensure it could be witnessed by US President Donald Trump and lacked sufficient details to ensure the deal to end the armed conflict would hold, Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs Sihasak Phuangketkeow said after an ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur. The two countries agreed to hold talks using their General Border Committee, an established bilateral mechanism, with Thailand
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday announced plans for a national bravery award to recognize civilians and first responders who confronted “the worst of evil” during an anti-Semitic terror attack that left 15 dead and has cast a heavy shadow over the nation’s holiday season. Albanese said he plans to establish a special honors system for those who placed themselves in harm’s way to help during the attack on a beachside Hanukkah celebration, like Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian Muslim who disarmed one of the assailants before being wounded himself. Sajid Akram, who was killed by police during the Dec. 14 attack, and
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