UNITED STATES
Musk threatens more firings
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been given little more than 48 hours to explain what they accomplished over the past week, sparking confusion across key agencies. Billionaire Elon Musk, who serves as President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting chief, telegraphed the extraordinary request on his social media network on Saturday. “Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk wrote on X. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” Shortly afterward, federal employees received a three-line e-mail instructing them to reply by today at 11:59pm with five things they accomplished last week. “It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life,” American Federation of Government Employees president Everett Kelley said.
Photo: REUTERS
FRANCE
One dead in ‘Islamist’ attack
A man who went on a stabbing rampage, killing one and wounding several others in what President Emmanuel Macron called an “Islamist terrorist act,” was on a terrorism watch list and subject to deportation orders, authorities said. The knife-wielding suspect, later identified by prosecutors as a 37-year-old Algerian-born man, was arrested at the site of Saturday’s attack in the eastern city of Mulhouse. The attack occurred at about 4pm near a busy market, where demonstrators were rallying in support of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A 69-year-old Portuguese man was fatally wounded, while parking attendants and police were also hurt.
Photo: AFP
AFGHANISTAN
Women’s radio to reopen
A women’s radio station is to resume broadcasts after the Taliban suspended its operations, citing “unauthorized provision” of content to an overseas TV channel and improperly using its license. Radio Begum launched on International Women’s Day in March 2021, five months before the Taliban seized power amid the withdrawal of US and NATO troops. The station’s content is produced entirely by Afghan women. Its sister satellite channel, Begum TV, operates from France and broadcasts programs that cover the Afghan school curriculum. The Taliban have banned education for women and girls in the country beyond grade six. The Ministry of Information and Culture said the suspension was lifted after the station made commitments conduct broadcasts “in accordance with the principles of journalism and the regulations of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and to avoid any violations in the future.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
SUDAN
Cholera outbreak kills 58
A cholera outbreak in the southern city of Kosti killed 58 people and sickened about 1,300 over the past three days, health authorities said on Saturday. The outbreak was blamed mainly on contaminated drinking water after the city’s water supply facility was knocked out during an attack by a notorious paramilitary group, the Ministry of Health said. “The situation is really alarming and is about to get out of control,” Doctors Without Borders medical coordinator in Kosti Francis Layoo Ocan said. “We’ve run out of space, and we are now admitting patients in an open area and treating them on the floor because there are not enough beds.”
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
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