SPAIN
Black cat adoptions paused
Long stigmatized for bringing bad luck or for links with the occult, black cats have found salvation in a town that has temporarily banned their adoption to ward off potentially sinister Halloween “rituals.” Any adoption or fostering request for the felines would be denied until Nov. 10 to prevent “possible risk ... derived from superstitions, rituals or irresponsible uses,” the animal welfare service of Terrassa, a town north of Barcelona, announced on Monday last week. The decision was taken “due to the arrival of the Halloween period and following the prudence criteria applied by various animal protection entities,” it added. Local newspaper Diari de Terrassa quoted animal welfare councilor Noel Duque as saying last week that adoption requests for black cats increase close to Halloween “for ritual purposes” or “as decoration because ‘it’s cool.’” The town hall “could not look the other way” when faced with “a grim topic,” Duque said. Animal welfare groups warn that cats can be hurt, killed or used as props during Halloween rituals. Exceptions to the ban would be “duly justified and assessed by the technical team of the center, where there is a full safety guarantee and a reliable history of the applicant,” the animal welfare service said.
Photo: AFP
CHINA
Customs seizes maps
Customs officials seized 60,000 maps it deemed “problematic” over their labelling of Taiwan and omission of territory Beijing claims in the South China Sea, authorities said. The maps were seized during an inspection of a batch of export goods in Shandong Province, customs authorities said in a statement on the messaging app WeChat. The statement did not specify when the maps were confiscated or where they had been printed. It said some of the maps “mislabeled” Taiwan and omitted “important” islands as well as the “nine-dash line,” which China uses to justify its maritime claims in the South China Sea. Other maps seized did not contain the boundary line between the maritime islands of China and Japan. These maps “endanger national unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” and are prohibited from being imported or exported, customs authorities said.
INDIA
New crash probe sought
The 91-year-old father of the Air India pilot in a June crash that killed 260 has asked the Supreme Court to order an independent investigation that takes into account causes other than pilot action, sources familiar with the matter said. The lawsuit represents a major escalation of protests by the father and a pilots’ union against the government’s handling of the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade, which came soon after takeoff in the western city of Ahmedabad. The plea by the father, Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, for an investigation by a panel of aviation experts headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, comes weeks after he criticized the government investigation. He said two officials from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau who visited him had implied that his son, Sumeet Sabharwal, cut the fuel to the plane’s engine after takeoff. The government has denied such accusations, calling the investigation “very clean” and “very thorough.” He asked in a court filing for the government investigation to be closed and handed to a new panel headed by a retired Supreme Court judge that includes aviation experts, said the two sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
SANCTIONS: Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs Therese Kayikwamba Wagner called on the EU to tighten sanctions against Rwanda during an event in Brussels The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has accused the EU of “an obvious double standard” for maintaining a minerals deal with Rwanda to supply Europe’s high-tech industries when it deployed a far-wider sanctions regime in response to the war in Ukraine. Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs Therese Kayikwamba Wagner urged the EU to levy much stronger sanctions against Rwanda, which has fueled the conflict in the eastern DR Congo, describing the bloc’s response to breaches of the DR Congo’s territory as “very timid.” Referencing the EU’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she said: “It is an obvious double standard
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