AUSTRALIA
Shark kills swimmer
Several Sydney beaches, including the iconic Bondi and Bronte, were shut yesterday after a swimmer was killed in a shark attack, the first such fatality at the city’s beaches in nearly 60 years. Drum lines, which are used to bait sharks, have been set up near the attack site, while drones have been deployed as officials search for the shark. A video shared online showed a shark attacking a person on Wednesday afternoon off Little Bay beach, about 20km south of Australia’s largest city and near the entrance to Botany Bay.
HONG KONG
Xi expresses concerns
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) directed Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng (韓正) to express to Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) the concerns that Chinese Communist Party leaders have about the territory’s COVID-19 situation, Wen Wei Po reported yesterday. Xi said that the local government’s “overriding task” was to control the situation. Hong Kong is facing its worst outbreak of the pandemic, topping 2,000 new COVID-19 cases each day this week. The Caritas Medical Center on Wednesday was treating some patients in beds outside the building. “The reason why our society has become chaotic like this today is all because of this [“zero COVID-19”] policy. The organizational skill of the government has made Hong Kong people feel so hopeless,” said Daisy Ho, a 70-year-old homemaker.
INDIA
Thirteen die at wedding
Thirteen women and girls died while singing and dancing at a wedding as a concrete slab covering an abandoned village well collapsed under their weight, an official said yesterday. Ten other people were injured as they also fell into the well and were hospitalized in Kushinagar District in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, Magistrate S. Rajalingam said. The well is more than 15m deep, said Muralidhar Singh, a rescuer.
CANADA
Bodies recovered from ship
Rescuers recovered bodies from a Spanish fishing ship that sank in rough seas off Newfoundland, raising the confirmed death toll to nine, but the search for 12 missing sailors was called off on Wednesday. Lieutenant Commander Brian Owens, spokesperson of the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax, said that all search and rescue craft were returning to base and civilian vessels had been released from their obligation to contribute to the effort. The Villa de Pitanxo fishing boat, which operated out of northwest Spain’s Galicia region, sank early on Tuesday, tossing its 24 crew members into icy seas.
UNITED STATES
Republicans doubt result
Only 13 of the 143 Texas Republican candidates for Congress say they believe US President Joe Biden’s election win was legitimate, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. Hearst Newspapers sent questions about the election and searched campaign Web sites and social media pages of the Republicans running for Congress in Texas. Of 86 with discernible positions, at least 42 have outright said that Democrats stole the 2020 election, called the results illegitimate, or said they would have voted not to certify. Another 11 candidates have said there was enough fraud or irregularities to cast doubt on the results. “We’ve seen across the board, the Democrats have always cheated,” said Jonathan Hullihan, a candidate in the state’s 8th Congressional District.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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