One of Australia's most enduring mysteries, the fate of a baby killed by a dingo in the Outback 24 years ago, took another twist yesterday with a newspaper quoting an elderly man as saying he retrieved the baby's body from the jaws of a wild dog he shot.
The stunning claim by 78-year-old Frank Cole to the Sunday Herald Sun tabloid in Melbourne could not immediately be corroborated.
He told the paper he had photos of the night in August 1980 that Azaria Chamberlain went missing from a campsite near Ayers Rock, also known as Uluru, but said the photos did not include one of the baby's body.
Police initially did not believe the claim of Azaria's mother, Lindy Chamberlain, that a wild dog known as a dingo snatched the infant, and she was convicted of murder in 1982. She was freed on appeal in 1986 and formally cleared of the murder two years later after fresh evidence -- an item of Azaria's clothing -- backed up her version of events. However, the baby's body has never been found.
The saga was made into the 1988 movie A Cry in the Dark, starring Meryl Streep.
Cole told the newspaper he felt "pretty lousy and guilty" when Chamberlain was convicted.
He said he had shot the dingo thinking it was a rabbit to provide food for a dog while on a camping trip with three friends. He did not report what had happened because shooting a dingo could have earned him a fine.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
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