AUSTRALIA
Fires rage in Queensland
Residents in three areas in northern Queensland state were yesterday ordered to evacuate their homes immediately, as bushfires burned out of control. Firefighters, including those flown in from across the country and New Zealand, have been battling blazes that have already killed two and destroyed dozens of homes. People near Watsonville and two adjacent areas, near the town of Dalveen, were ordered to evacuate immediately.
INDONESIA
State to reclaim palm land
About 200,000 hectares of oil palm plantations found in areas designated as forests are expected to be returned to the state to be converted back into forests, a government official said late on Tuesday. Companies have until today to submit paperwork and pay fines to obtain cultivation rights on their plantations under rules issued in 2020. While 3.3 million hectares of the country’s nearly 17 million hectares of palm plantations have been found in forests, only owners of plantations with a combined size of 1.67 million hectares have been identified, Ministry of Environment and Forestry Secretary-General Bambang Hendroyono told reporters.
UNITED STATES
Biden to meet Xi in US
US President Joe Biden is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit in San Francisco this month for “constructive” talks, the White House said on Tuesday. The comments came days after Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) made a rare visit to Washington to pave the way for Xi to meet Biden. China has not yet confirmed that Xi will come.
CHINA
Costumes poke fun at ‘dabai’
Halloween revelers on Tuesday night thronged central Shanghai, with some dressed in costumes that poked fun at strict COVID-19 curbs in a rare showcase of free expression as police looked on. Some attracted attention on social media for costumes such as blue-and-white hazmat suits that gained infamy in China last year for being used by authorities enforcing COVID-19 curbs known as dabai (big whites, 大白). “The dabai, COVID-19 testing, A-share market ... that Shanghai people dressed up as are all elements that speak to the trauma of the times and traces of history. Once again, entertainment is not superficial, behind it are real life scars,” one user on Sina Weibo wrote yesterday.
AUSTRALIA
Surfer missing after attack
Authorities yesterday searched for the remains of a 55-year-old surfer after a witness reportedly saw an attack by a large shark that “had his body in his mouth.” There has been no trace of the victim since the marine predator struck on Tuesday morning near the popular surfing spot of Granites Beach in South Australia, police said. “The man’s body is yet to be found and the search resumed early this morning,” police said in a statement. A 70-year-old surfer Ian Brophy was at the scene when the attack happened. “As I turned around, I saw the shark go and just launch and bite,” he told the Advertiser. Brophy said he saw the predator go “over the top of the guy and bite and drag him down under the water and then nothing for a minute or two and blood everywhere and then up pops the board.” Within a few minutes, there was no sign of the surfer’s body. “It took every bit of him, I think.”
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
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