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.”
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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