SOLOMON ISLANDS
Quake sways buildings
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the Solomon Islands yesterday, swaying buildings, hurling items off shelves and briefly knocking out power in parts of the capital, Honiara. There were no reports of serious injuries or major structural damage. “This was a big one,” said Joy Nisha, a receptionist with the Heritage Park Hotel in the capital. “Some of the things in the hotel fell. Everyone seems OK, but panicky.” At one recently built mall, chunks of cladding were shaken loose, crushing the front of a car and breaking the windshield. The roof of an annex at the Australian High Commission also collapsed, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told parliament in Canberra, adding: “There are no known injuries.” Across Honiara, people fled their homes and workplaces for higher ground, fearing a tsunami. A tsunami warning was issued, but was later withdrawn.
UNITED STATES
Marijuana pardons unveiled
Oregon Governor Kate Brown on Monday said that she is pardoning an estimated 45,000 people convicted of simple possession of marijuana. “No one deserves to be forever saddled with the impacts of a conviction for simple possession of marijuana — a crime that is no longer on the books in Oregon,” said Brown, who is also forgiving more than US$14 million in unpaid fines and fees. President Joe Biden has been calling on governors to issue pardons for those convicted of state marijuana offenses. Biden’s pardon applies to those convicted under federal law and thousands convicted in the District of Columbia. In Oregon, the pardon will remove 47,144 convictions for possession of a small amount of marijuana from individual records. Brown said that removing these criminal records eliminates barriers for employment, housing and educational opportunities.
UNITED STATES
SpaceX postpones launch
SpaceX on Monday said that it postponed the launch of the Eutelsat mission due to additional pre-flight checks. The company is now targeting the liftoff for about noon today Taiwan time. The weather was 20 percent favorable, SpaceX wrote on Twitter. The company was to launch the Eutelsat 10B mission to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
FRANCE
Cyberattack hits Guadeloupe
The Caribbean island of Guadeloupe has shut down all its computer networks to protect data after a “large-scale cyberattack,” local authorities said on Monday. “As a security measure, all computer networks have been shut down to protect data and a diagnosis is under way,” the region said in a statement. “A continuity of services plan has been put in place to ensure public services,” the regional authorities said, adding that they had filed a complaint and sent a notification to data protection authority CNIL. The region said it was also collaborating with the national police and the gendarmerie.
JAPAN
Church to be investigated
The government yesterday said that it would begin a probe of the Unification Church, starting a process that could strip the religious group of its legal status. The government would give the church until Dec. 9 to answer questions about its finances and organization, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Keiko Nagaoka told a regular news conference.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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