■ MALAYSIA
Shaman arrested for abuse
Police have detained a 50-year-old shaman and his 43-year-old wife accused of molesting a teenager during treatment, news reports said on Thursday. The 19-year-old girl was believed to have gone to the home of the medicine man in the southern Johor state to seek treatment for muscle aches on Tuesday night, the Star daily reported. The victim was allegedly held to the ground by the suspect’s wife during treatment and her clothes removed by the shaman who then allegedly molested the girl. Following a police report logged by the girl, police have detained the suspect and his wife, district police chief Osman Mohamed Sebot confirmed. “We believe there are more victims who did not lodge police reports,” Osman said, adding that the suspect had previously worked as a truck driver.
■MARSHALL ISLANDS
State of emergency declared
A state of emergency was declared after severe flooding forced more than 600 people out of their homes. The Marshall Islands Journal reports that a combination of 1.5m waves and heavy storms swamped the cities of Majuro and Ebeye, destroying plywood homes and forcing residents to move into churches, high schools and youth centers. About 460mm of water submerged parts the islands, and the streets are covered with rocks, coral and debris. The flooding occurred from Dec. 9 to Dec. 15, and the state of emergency was declared Christmas Eve. Flooding is a severe problem for the islands because they lie close to sea level.
■CHINA
Train smoker detained
A man was given three days in detention for breaking a no-smoking rule on a new high-speed rail line, Chinese state media said, an unusually severe punishment in a country where smoking bans are routinely ignored. He was caught smoking in the toilet just after the train had left Tianjin for Beijing, triggering an alarm and causing the train to stop, the official Xinhua news agency said on its Web site.
■CHINA
Wolf caught near Great Wall
A wolf has been captured by forestry workers near a part of the Great Wall close to Beijing that is popular with tourists, state media said on Thursday. The wolf is being kept at a nature park and will be released in uninhabited mountains far from the Wall, Xinhua news agency said.
■NEPAL
Tubby tigers go on a diet
Authorities said on Wednesday they had stopped feeding tigers in the country’s only zoo for one day a week to keep them from piling on the kilos. One of three fat cats at Jawalakhel zoo in the Nepali capital now weighs in at about 220kg, having gained 40kg on a diet of buffalo meat in just eight months.
■CHINA
Public heater breaks down
The collapse of a public heating system in one of the country’s coldest cities has left thousands of people without heat during a cold spell, state media reported on Thursday. At least 10,000 families in Qiqihar City in Heilongjiang Province, which borders Siberia, were affected by the breakdown and local authorities said it could take two days to fix, the Xinhua news agency said. The temperature dropped to minus 25ºC on Wednesday night, when the system feeding coal to the Qiqihar Thermal Power Co broke down. The high on Thursday was minus 13ºC. Households in northern Chinese cities rely on public systems for heating.
■SWEDEN
Donald Duck still a hit
Donald Duck may have struggled under Mickey Mouse’s shadow, but in Sweden millions of people have tuned in to watch the hot-headed Disney character’s Christmas special every year since 1959. Between 3.5 million and 3.8 million people were expected to watch the one-hour special Donald Duck and His Friends Wish You All a Merry Christmas this year, said spokeswoman Ulrika Lundgren Borg of SVT public television. “Swedish television started to show Donald Duck on the afternoon of Christmas Eve in 1959. It was very popular since it was one of the first animated shows on TV,” she said. But the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper reported that viewership for the irascible duck’s show has dropped by 1 million since 1997, the height of the Christmas special’s popularity. Still, SVT programming director Thomas Nilsson said the future of the sailor suit-wearing hero, known as Kalle Ankas in the Nordic country, was safe in Sweden. “Kalle has been the No. 1 or No. 2 [program] for years. We are very far from a critical point,” Nilsson was quoted as saying by Svenska Dagbladet.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Beach sex duo return home
A British man and woman convicted of having sex on the beach in Dubai have returned home in time for the Christmas holidays, their lawyers said on Wednesday. Vince Acors, 34, landed back at London’s Heathrow airport earlier on Wednesday, his lawyer said. “He’s absolutely delighted that he’s home for Christmas,” Andrew Crossley added. “He’s very pleased he has finally got back and is looking forward to spending time at his home.” Acors’ homecoming was repeatedly delayed, apparently over problems with his ticket. Meanwhile, Michelle Palmer, 36, returned a week ago, her Dubai-based lawyer Hassan Matar said, adding that her departure was kept secret on her request. “Michelle called me from the UK and told me everything was okay and that she was very happy to be home,” Matar said. An appeals court last month suspended a three-month jail term but the two were ordered to pay a 1,000 dirham (US$270) fine for drinking alcohol and ordered expelled from the country.
■SWEDEN
Gunman injures three
A highly inebriated man shot and injured two female customers and a security guard at the Cosmopol casino in Stockholm, police reported on Thursday. The man had been denied entry to the casino shortly before midnight because he looked drunk. He then pulled out a pistol, fired numerous shots in the direction of the entrance and fled. The two women, aged 47 and 28, received injuries to the arms and legs, while the guard was shot in the stomach. All three were taken to hospital. A major search had so far been unable to locate the man.
■FRANCE
Blast hits real estate agency
Police defused an explosive device found at an athletic center in southwestern France on Thursday, but another device exploded at a real estate agency in a neighboring region, a police official said. The first device, a container of flammable liquid connected to a live detonator, was found in the town of Capbreton around midday, the official said. No one had claimed responsibility. He said the anti-terrorism division of the Paris prosecutors office had opened an investigation. Graffiti at the site of the device that exploded, in the French Basque country read: “The Basque Country is not for sale.” No one was hurt in the explosion.
■UNITED STATES
Dog burglar lifts bone
A thief remains at large after pulling off a daring heist — in the pet food aisle. Surveillance video at a supermarket in a Salt Lake City suburb caught a dog shoplifting, KSL-TV reported on Wednesday. The video showed the dog walking in the front door of Smith’s Food & Drug in Murray, and heading straight to Aisle 16, the pet food aisle, where it grabbed a bone worth US$2.79. The thief wasn’t even perturbed by a face-to-face confrontation with store manager Roger Adamson. “I looked at him. I said ‘Drop it!”’ Adamson said. “He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he ran for the door and away he went, right out the front door.”
■CANADA
Woman gives birth in snow
A woman who gave birth to twins on a freezing street in Windsor, Ontario, amid snow and rain was in good condition and the newborns were expected to survive, it was reported on Thursday. Police officers on a routine patrol first thought they were at a crime scene when they saw a woman covered in blood screaming for help and waving them down. The 27-year-old woman was clutching a baby and said she had just given birth, the Windsor Star reported. While ambulances were still on their way, the woman delivered a second baby before midnight on Tuesday. Staff at the Windsor Regional Hospital said on Thursday that the mother and babies were doing well. One of the newborns was said to be in serious condition on Wednesday. The premature babies weighed in at 1.8kg and 1.3kg. “Our officers deal regularly with tragic circumstances. This was extremely unusual ... traumatic,” Windsor deputy police chief Jerome Brannagan was quoted as saying. The Children’s Aid Society was investigating the circumstances that led to the woman giving birth on the street.
■DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Cardinal pans pardons
The top Roman Catholic official is criticizing the president’s pre-Christmas pardon of five embezzlers. Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez says inmates jailed for petty crimes were far more deserving of pardons or commutations. The cardinal said on Thursday that many people felt “deep indignation” over the pardons, which were issued by President Leonel Fernandez. One of the men pardoned on Monday was Vivian Lubrano de Castillo, a former bank executive convicted for embezzlement and fraud amid the 2003 financial collapse that hobbled the economy.
■UNITED STATES
Dog shooting causes stir
A new policy that allows authorities in a rural northern Texas town to shoot wild, roaming dogs has riled animal welfare advocates. The policy, which permits authorities in Ferris to use shotguns to kill aggressive dogs running loose, was implemented last week to curb the town’s growing population of about 50 to 100 feral dogs. City Manager David Chavez said Ferris, a town of about 2,300 residents about 32.19km south of Dallas, had become an unwanted pet dumping ground where the released animals breed, form packs and scavenge for food. Police Chief Frank Mooney said the town had tried other methods with little success. Mooney said police would shoot only potentially violent dogs after attempts to capture them had failed. Animal rights advocates said the problem could be solved in better ways, such as trapping the animals or encouraging punishment for those who dump dogs.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
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