AUSTRALIA
Landmark treaty signed
Canberra and Funafuti are pressing ahead with a landmark treaty offering the Pacific Island’s citizens a climate refuge, quieting speculation about the fate of the pact. The 11-page treaty was presented to the Australian Parliament late on Tuesday — offering Tuvalu residents the right to live in Australia if their homeland is lost to rising sea levels. The pact also commits Australia to defending Tuvalu in the face of natural disasters, health pandemics and “military aggression,” but only upon their request for aid.
TUNISIA
Four sentenced to death
Four people were condemned to death and two sentenced to life in prison yesterday after a decade-long investigation into the 2013 killing of secular opposition leader Chokri Belaid. Belaid’s assassination, which was claimed by militants loyal to the Islamic State group, dealt a heavy blow to the fledgling democracy established after the overthrow Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in the first of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011. The judgement was announced on national television early yesterday after 15 hours of deliberation. Twenty-three people received sentences ranging from two to 120 years, while five defendants were acquitted.
UKRAINE
Russian fleet devastated
The military has sunk or disabled one-third of all Russian warships in the Black Sea in just more than two years of war, a navy spokesman said on Tuesday, a heavy blow to Moscow’s military capability. Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk said that the latest strike on Saturday night hit the Russian amphibious landing ship Kostiantyn Olshansky that was resting in dock in Sevastopol in Russia-occupied Crimea, along with two other landing ships and an intelligence ship. With the latest attack, one-third of all warships that Russian had in the Black Sea before the war have been destroyed or disabled, Pletenchuk said.
UNITED STATES
Man dies in subway attack
A man died after being pushed onto subway tracks in New York in an unprovoked attack, authorities reported less than a month after troops were deployed to reduce surging violence in the city’s transportation system. The victim, who has not been identified, was shoved in front of an oncoming No. 4 train on Monday evening in East Harlem, police said. Officers arrested and charged the alleged assailant, a 24-year-old man named Carlton McPherson, who local media reported has a long history of mental illness. In the past few months there have been a number of deadly shootings, as well as incidents involving knives and passengers being pushed onto the tracks.
AUSTRALIA
Man in drain hiding: police
Police yesterday said that a man who spent more than 30 hours stuck in a Brisbane drain was hiding from them, not trying to retrieve a lost mobile phone as he initially claimed. The man’s underground escapades are believed to have begun when he was allegedly involved in a crash with a police vehicle in the early hours of Sunday. After hitting the police vehicle, the man fled before being involved in another crash, at which point he fled on foot, police said. It was then that the 38-year-old man is alleged to have entered the drain looking for a place to hide. The trapped man was initially spotted by a passerby on Sunday and refused an offer of help, saying: “No bro, I’m all good,” adding he was looking for a lost phone.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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