UNITED KINGDOM
Doctors launch strike
Doctors in England yesterday began a five-day strike over pay and working conditions during a surge in influenza cases and with no end in sight to an increasingly bitter dispute between the government and doctors’ union. The walkout is the latest in a series of strikes this year by “resident” or junior doctors, who make up nearly half the medical workforce and say their pay has been eroded over more than a decade. National Health Service England last week warned that hospitals were facing a “worst-case scenario” from a surge in cases of a virulent strain of flu.
Photo: AFP
UNITED STATES
Trump expands travel ban
President Donald Trump on Tuesday sharply expanded a travel ban by barring people from seven more countries, including Syria, as well as Palestinian Authority passport holders, from entering the US. The latest move brings to nearly 40 the number of countries whose citizens face restrictions in coming to the US solely by virtue of nationality, with Trump also tightening rules for routine travel from Western nations. The White House in a proclamation said it was banning foreigners who “intend to threaten” Americans.
NEW ZEALAND
Former top cop sentenced
The Wellington District Court yesterday sentenced former deputy police commissioner Jevon McSkimming to nine months of home detention, after he admitted to possessing child sexual exploitation and bestiality material. McSkimming, who until late last year was the nation’s second-highest ranking police officer, was arrested and charged in June with eight counts of possessing objectionable material. The 52-year-old last month admitted to three charges, including possession of child sexual exploitation and bestiality images, which were stored on his work devices. Judge Tim Black ruled that McSkimming would not have to register as a child sexual offender. The judge adopted a starting point of three years’ prison, but gave deductions for McSkimming’s guilty plea, remorse and attempts at rehabilitation.
UNITED STATES
Rob Reiner’s son charged
The son of famed Hollywood director Rob Reiner was charged with two counts of first-degree murder over the brutal slaying of his parents, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman’s office said on Tuesday. Nick Reiner, 32, who has a history of substance abuse stretching back to his teenage years, could face life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty if convicted over the killings. The office said in a statement that Nick Reiner had been charged with “with two counts of murder with the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders,” and also faces “a special allegation that he personally used a dangerous and deadly weapon, a knife.”
UNITED STATES
Last cents sold for millions
The US Mint on Thursday last week sold 232 three-cent sets for US$$16.76 million at an auction hosted by Stack’s Bowers Galleries, after the government ended the cent’s production last month. The 232nd set — containing the last three pennies ever made — sold for US$800,000. That bidder also got the three dies that struck the Lincoln cents. “I’ve been going to coin auctions for 40 years, and I can tell you, I’ve never seen anything like this, because there’s never been anything like this,” Stack’s Bowers numismatic Americana director John Kraljevich said.
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
Cozy knits, sparkly bobbles and Santa hats were all the canine rage on Sunday, as hundreds of sausage dogs and their owners converged on central London for an annual parade and get-together. The dachshunds’ gathering in London’s Hyde Park came after a previous “Sausage Walk” planned for Halloween had to be postponed, because it had become so popular organizers needed to apply for an events licence. “It was going to be too much fun so they canceled it,” laughed Nicky Bailey, the owner of three sausage dogs: Una and her two 19-week-old puppies Ember and Finnegan, wearing matching red coats and silver
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