ITALY
Berlusconi eyes return
Scandal-plagued former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi yesterday said he hoped to return to parliament in next month’s elections, almost a decade after being forced out over a conviction for tax fraud. “I think that, in the end, I will be present myself as a candidate for the Senate, so that all these people who asked me will finally be happy,” the 85-year-old billionaire and media mogul told Rai radio. After helping bring down Prime Minister Mario Draghi last month by withdrawing its support, Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party looks set to return to power in Sept. 25 elections. It is part of a right-wing coalition led by Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy, which includes former prime minister Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigration League. Berlusconi urged voters to back his party as the moderate voice in the coalition, emphasizing its European, Atlantacist stance.
FRANCE
Police kill man with knife
Police officers yesterday shot and killed a man who brandished a knife at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. “Officers neutralized a threatening individual in possession of a knife,” the Paris police wrote on Twitter. An airport source said the incident occurred at the busy Terminal 2F at about 8:20am when “a homeless man started bothering security agents and border police were called in to remove him.” An Agence France-Presse photographer who witnessed the scene said “a large person of color brandished something that looked like a knife at the police... He was ordered to stop, but kept advancing toward them, and an officer fired a single shot.”
POLAND
PM urges EU reform
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki yesterday accused the EU of imperialistic behavior toward smaller member states in an op-ed published on Die Welt’s Web site. “Political practice has shown that the positions of Germany and France count more than all the others,” Morawiecki wrote for the German newspaper, calling for a more consensus-based approach. “So we are dealing with a formal democracy and a de facto oligarchy in which the strongest hold power,” he said. The prime minister, whose government has clashed repeatedly with Brussels over rule of law issues, said the Russian invasion of Ukraine had thrown a spotlight on the EU’s shortcomings, and called for “profound reform that puts the common good and equality back at the forefront of the union’s principles.”
UNITED KINGDOM
‘The Snowman’ author dies
Cartoonist and illustrator Raymond Briggs, whose creation The Snowman became a Christmas staple for generations of children, has died aged 88, his publisher, Penguin Random House, said yesterday. The 1978 picture book about a young, ginger-haired boy who builds a snowman that magically comes to life has sold more than 5.5 million copies globally and was transformed into an animated film in 1982. First shown on TV, with an introduction by singer David Bowie in some later versions, the film and its memorable musical score has become synonymous with Christmas ever since, being shown every year. “Raymond’s books are picture masterpieces that address some of the fundamental questions of what it is to be human, speaking to both adults and children,” said Francesca Dow, managing director of Penguin Random House children’s books department.
SOUTH KOREA
Rain lets up in Seoul
Torrential rains that have slammed Seoul diminished yesterday after killing at least nine people and damaging about 2,800 homes and other buildings. More rain was forecast for yesterday, but less than the heavy downpours on Monday and Tuesday that submerged some streets and buildings, trapping people in flooded apartments and stranding vehicles. At least five people had been killed in Seoul as of early yesterday, as well as three in the neighboring Gyeonggi Province and one in Gangwon Province, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said. At least 17 people have been injured, and seven are missing.
GREECE
Dozens missing at sea
A major search-and-rescue operation has been launched east of the island of Karpathos after a boat reportedly carrying dozens of migrants sank during the night, the coast guard said yesterday. Twenty-nine men from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran were rescued about 33 nautical miles (61.1km) southeast of the island. They told authorities that about 60 to 80 people were on board the vessel when it went down, the coast guard said. Those rescued said the boat had set sail from the Antalya area of Turkey and were headed for Italy when it ran into trouble during the night.
SOUTH AFRICA
Ramaphosa theft updated
Burglars in 2020 took US$600,000 in cash from a game farm owned by President Cyril Ramaphosa, far less than the US$4 million that had been previously speculated to have been stolen, News24 reported, without saying where it obtained the information. The money was the proceeds from the sale of a buffalo to an unidentified buyer from Dubai, the Johannesburg-based news Web site said. The cash had been stored in a cupboard, it said. Former State Security Agency director-general Arthur Fraser laid charges against Ramaphosa in June alleging that the theft of more than US$4 million that was hidden inside furniture at the game farm had not been properly reported. Ramaphosa has refused to answer any questions about the incident, including those posed to him by lawmakers, although he has submitted responses to the nation’s graft ombudsman that have not been made public.
PAKISTAN
Zoo cancels lion auction
A zoo has called off plans to auction 12 lions from its ever-growing pride to private buyers, saying it would instead create new enclosures for the big cats. The auction planned for today had drawn condemnation from the WWF, which urged authorities at Lahore Zoo Safari to instead rehome them with other government wildlife facilities. “The main reason behind the auction was the lack of space,” deputy director Tanvir Ahmed Janjua said, adding that officials had decided to speed up work building two new enclosures. “Now that this issue is to be resolved soon, there is no need for the auction to take place.” Zoo officials had set a reserve of 150,000 rupees (US$668) per cat — about the same price as a cow — but hoped each would fetch about 2 million rupees at auction. Keeping lions, tigers and other exotic wildlife as pets is not uncommon in Pakistan, and is seen as a status symbol. Janjua denied opposition from animal rights advocates led to the decision to cancel the auction. “Should the lions breed more, and we see we are running out of space once again, then we can easily hold another auction,” he said.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
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