JAPAN
McDonald’s cancels promo
McDonald’s Japan has canceled a Happy Meal campaign that came with coveted Pokemon cards, apologizing after resellers rushed to buy the meals and then discarded the food, leaving trash outside stores. The meals sold out in a day, with mounds of wasted food found near the stores, media reported. “We do not believe in abandoning and discarding food. This situation goes against our longtime philosophy that we have cherished as a restaurant to ‘offer a fun dining experience for children and families,’” the company said in a statement on Monday. Unusually large crowds were seen flocking to McDonald’s stores when the meals with the Pokemon cards went on sale. The popular collectibles were later being resold for up to hundreds of US dollars online.
Photo: AP
CZECH REPUBLIC
Beijing criticizes Pavel
Beijing on Tuesday said it would cease engagement with President Petr Pavel over his July 27 meeting with the Dalai Lama, escalating diplomatic tensions between the two countries. The presidential office said the meeting with the Dalai Lama, who celebrated his 90th birthday last month, took place in a private capacity. “In light of the severity of Pavel’s provocative action, China decides to cease all engagement with him,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) said in a statement. Prague’s criticism of human rights violations in China, as well as diplomatic and business ties with Taiwan, have repeatedly angered Beijing.
UNITED KINGDOM
US woman found guilty
An American woman on Tuesday was found guilty of participating in a 2019 plot to murder a British man caught up in a bitter feud between families. After a years-long police hunt, Aimee Betro, 45, was extradited earlier this year from Armenia where she was living, to face trial in Birmingham. Prosecutors told the court Betro had covered her face in a niqab as she climbed out of a car in September 2019 and tried to shoot Sikander Ali at point-blank range. The handgun jammed and Ali fled in his car, which was parked outside his home. Prosecutors said Betro was part of a plot with coconspirators Mohammed Aslam, 56, and his 31-year-old son, Mohammed Nabil Nazir. Betro had met Nazir on an online dating site, and told the jury she was in love with him. She is to be sentenced on Aug. 21.
UNITED STATES
Great white spotted in Maine
Reports of a large great white shark near some of Maine’s most popular beaches prompted police in one coastal town to issue a warning on Tuesday. Scarborough’s marine resource officer got word of the more than 3m-long shark on Monday, police said. The shark was spotted in the area of Crescent Beach State Park, Higgins Beach and Pine Point Beach, they said, all located within a half-hour’s drive of Portland. Commercial clam fisherman David Lancaster took drone footage of the shark swimming just beneath the surface. He said seeing the big shark was “magnificent,” if a little surprising. “It was pretty crazy to see in the local waters. There are some really amazing creatures in the sea,” said Lancaster, who lives in nearby Scarborough. “It’s in the back of your head, but you have to accept it.” White sharks are not commonly seen off Maine, but have lived in the state’s waters for centuries.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
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