GERMANY
Tanks top agenda
The first item on the agenda of the next minister of defense would be whether to deliver main battle tanks to Ukraine, Minister of Economic Affairs Robert Habeck told Deutschlandfunk radio on Tuesday. “When the person, when the minister of defense, is declared, this is the first question to be decided concretely,” Habeck said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Minister of Defense Christine Lambrecht on Monday resigned as the government came under rising pressure to let allies send Ukraine heavy tanks.
UNITED KINGDOM
Johnson to write memoir
Former prime minister Boris Johnson has signed a deal to write a memoir of his time in office, which began with a vow to “get Brexit done” and ended in scandal and resignation. Publisher HarperCollins on Monday said that the as-yet untitled book would be a prime ministerial memoir “like no other.” Johnson resigned in July last year after dozens of members of his government quit in protest. No publication date has been set for the book. “I look forward to working with Boris Johnson as he writes his account of his time in office during some of the most momentous events the United Kingdom has seen in recent times,” said Arabella Pike, publishing director at William Collins.
UNITED STATES
Bank money bag swiped
A man allegedly made off with US$300,000 in cash in a bizarre Brink’s truck robbery outside a Brooklyn bank last week, police said. The man took an unattended money bag from the armored truck’s bumper while two other men distracted the Brink’s employee by asking him for directions, police said. The incident happened at about 1pm on Jan. 6 during a money drop at a Chase Bank branch in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, police said. On Saturday, police released photographs of the suspects and asked for the public’s help finding them. In images taken from a surveillance camera outside the bank, a man can be seen crossing the street with what appears to be a bag of cash in his hands.
UNITED STATES
Biden criticizes Republicans
President Joe Biden on Monday said that Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives were being “fiscally demented.” Some of the “very first” legislation proposed by the House Republicans would further enrich wealthy people while adding to the tax burden of the middle class, Biden said. “These guys are fiscally demented. They don’t quite get it,” he said. “I reduced the deficit last year — US$350 billion. And this year, the federal deficit is down US$1 trillion-plus. Hear me. That’s a fact.” His remarks came two days after Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said she would have to take “extraordinary measures” to avert a government debt default this week.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
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