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.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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