AUSTRALIA
Hundreds flee bushfires
Out-of-control bushfires yesterday forced hundreds of residents and tourists to flee towns in the nation’s rural southeast, amid extreme temperatures. People in four towns in Victoria state’s Gippsland, a region of national parks and wineries popular with tourists, were told to evacuate immediately, while residents of three other towns and surrounding areas were told to prepare to leave. Among those who escaped was Briagolong resident Rob Saunders, who saw the flames reach his house. “I watched the main water tank, the plastic tanks melt away,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “I looked to the side of my house, it’s a mud brick, raw timber house, one of my verandah posts was on fire … it was time for me to go.” Further north in Sydney, temperatures reached 35.5°C — the warmest October day since 2019.
MALDIVES
Opposition wins election
President-elect Mohamed Muizzu said he wants to unite the Indian Ocean archipelago after divisive polls that saw the pro-Beijing leader vow to rebalance relations with New Delhi. “No matter their political affiliation, they are all Maldivian citizens in front of me,” Muizzu told supporters after his win late on Saturday. “They are entitled to the same rights. They are entitled to equality in everything.” There was no immediate reaction from China to his win, but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Muizzu yesterday. New Delhi is “committed to strengthening the time-tested India-Maldives bilateral relationship,” Modi wrote on social media platform X. Muizzu, 45, won 54 percent of the vote in the run-off contest, prompting incumbent President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih to concede defeat shortly before midnight on Saturday. Muizzu is to be inaugurated on Nov. 17.
MALI
Rebels claim to kill 81
Tuareg-dominated separatist groups on Saturday said that they had inflicted heavy losses on the military in an attack in the center of the troubled West African country. The rebels initially said they had counted 98 dead soldiers, but later revised the figure to 81. The claim came in statements from the Permanent Strategic Framework, which is dominated by the Coordination of Azawad Movements, an alliance of predominantly Tuareg groups — seeking autonomy or independence from the state. The rebels also said they had wounded dozens of soldiers, taken five prisoner, while losing seven of their own fighters. The claims made by rebels, and all sides involved in the fighting, are difficult to verify because of the remoteness of the affected areas.
TURKEY
Police hurt in bomb attack
A “terrorist attack” yesterday took place near the parliament in Ankara, leaving two police officers injured, the Ministry of the Interior said. Two attackers arrived in a commercial vehicle at about 9:30am “in front of the entrance gate of the General Directorate of Security of our Ministry of the Interior, and carried out a bomb attack,” it said. “One of the terrorists blew himself up and the other was neutralized,” the ministry added on social media, saying that two officers had “minor injuries.” The targeted district is home to several other ministries and the parliament, which was due to reopen today with an address from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, local media reported. Nobody immediately claimed the attack.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home