AFGHANISTAN
Fifty killed in flash flooding
Flash flooding has killed at least 50 people in Ghor Province, police said yesterday, a week after hundreds were washed away in the north. The floods on Friday also destroyed about 2,000 houses, and damaged thousands more homes and businesses, Ghor police spokesman Abdul Rahman Badri said in a statement. The fresh flooding comes as survivors of the flash floods on Friday last week in northern Baghlan Province continue to search for missing relatives. “Fifty residents of Ghor Province were killed by the floods on Friday and a number of others are missing,” Badri said. “These terrible floods have also killed thousands of cattle... They have destroyed hundreds of hectares of agricultural land, hundreds of bridges and culverts, and destroyed thousands of trees,” he added.
UNITED STATES
Actor Dabney Coleman dies
Dabney Coleman, a character actor who brought a glorious touch of smarm to the screen in playing comedic villains, mean-spirited bosses and outright jerks in films such as 9 to 5 and Tootsie, has died at age 92. Coleman “took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely” in his Santa Monica, California, home on Thursday, his daughter Quincy Coleman said in a statement on Friday on behalf of the family. While best remembered for his arrogant, unctuous and uncaring characters, Coleman said it was all an act. “It’s me kidding around,” Coleman once told the New York Times. Not all of Coleman’s characters were cads. He won an Emmy playing a lawyer in the 1987 television movie Sworn to Silence and a federal security official in 1983’s WarGames.
UNITED STATES
Xi-Putin hug ‘nice’: official
The White House on Friday said that it had not seen any surprising advance in relations between China and Russia despite Russian President Vladimir Putin exchanging a hug with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on a visit to Beijing. “Exchanging hugs? Well, that’s nice for them,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told a briefing when asked about the significance of photographs showing the two US adversaries locked in an embrace. “I’m not good at talking about personal human bodily affection one way or the other. I think I’ll leave it to these two gents to talk about why they thought it was good to hug one another,” Kirby said.
UNITED KINGDOM
McCartney is a billionaire
Paul McCartney is a billionaire Beatle, figures released on Friday showed. The annual Sunday Times Rich List calculated the wealth of the 81-year-old musician and his wife, Nancy Shevell, had grown by ￡50 million (US$63.32 million) since last year to ￡1 billion thanks to McCartney’s Got Back tour last year, the rising value of his back catalogue and Beyonce’s cover of The Beatles’ Blackbird on her Cowboy Carter album.
FRANCE
Stamp celebrates baguette
La Post on Friday rolled out a scratch-and-sniff postage stamp to celebrate the world-famous baguette, once described by President Emmanuel Macron as “250g of magic and perfection.” It was unveiled on Thursday, the day of Saint-Honore, the patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs. “The baguette, the bread of our daily lives, the symbol of our gastronomy, the jewel of our culture,” La Poste says on its Web site. The stamp, which costs 1.96 euros (US$2.14), depicts a baguette decorated with a blue-white-red ribbon, and has a “bakery scent.”
Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr on Tuesday hit out at China at an international forum after a memo asserting Beijing’s position over their longstanding maritime dispute was delivered to him while he was speaking on stage. The unusual incident was captured on video at the Seoul Defense Dialogue as the secretary was responding to a question about “gray zone” coercion in the South China Sea. The video shows what appears to be a conference staffer placing it on the table next to him while speaking. “I have a note here, I think this is from China,” he said, describing
PAINSTAKING PROCESS: Ice makers freeze water for up to 72 hours, replace tainted water with a fresh batch once freezing begins, and are constantly stirring In the historic Japanese city of Kanazawa, craftsmen painstakingly shape and slice blocks of ice destined to chill negronis in some of the world’s trendiest bars. The men work for Kuramoto Ice, a century-old company in Ishikawa on the Sea of Japan coast and one of dozens of Japanese firms producing ultra-clear, premium ice. This luxury product, believed by those in the industry to melt more slowly than regular blocks, is a staple of Japan’s cocktail culture, but its popularity is also spilling over to bars abroad, from the US to Australia, who pay as much as ￥200 (US$1.28) per cube. Kuramoto Ice
Thai police yesterday said that they arrested a senior Buddhist monk on suspicion of embezzling US$2.8 million intended for his monastery, alongside a suspected female accomplice he was having sex with. The case is the latest scandal to hit the clergy in Buddhist-majority Thailand after a sex and extortion case involving senior monks last year prompted public outrage and calls for greater scrutiny of temple finances. Phra Wachirayan Wi, the 66-year-old abbot of the 14th-century Wat Phutthaisawan in the ancient capital of Ayutthaya, was arrested on Thursday on charges including embezzlement and money laundering, lead police investigator Pattanasak Bupphasuwan said. A 47-year-old woman
China yesterday marked half a century since the death of Mao Zedong (毛澤東), founder of the People’s Republic, who brought roughly one-quarter of the world’s population under communist rule and whose specter still haunts China’s future. Mao’s death on Sept. 9, 1976, at age 82, mourned by many and welcomed by some who suffered under his nearly three-decade rule, also hastened the end of the Cultural Revolution, a frenzied mass movement he launched in 1966. The party later condemned the Cultural Revolution as a grave error for which Mao bore primary responsibility, but still reveres him, saying his achievements outweigh his mistakes. Mao’s
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