EUROPE
Freezing weather hits
Freezing temperatures are spreading across Europe, with snow forecast from Germany to the UK. Berlin is set for a low of minus-4.5°C today and tomorrow, while Helsinki was not expected to get above minus-8°C yesterday, forecaster Maxar Technologies Inc said. Weather warnings were issued for some areas of Germany yesterday, where the nation’s meteorological agency forecast up to 20cm of snow. Parts of Scotland and northeast England would also experience snow on higher ground, with wintry showers spreading south over the week, the UK’s Met Office said. London would fall below zero by the weekend. Weather forecasts after the first week of December vary. Maxar said in its daily report that “a cold pattern remains the favored outcome” for most of Europe for the next two weeks, while some models point to a potential rebound in temperatures in the northwest from Wednesday next week.
Photo: AFP
UNITED STATES
Shooting suspect arrested
Police have arrested a suspect in the shooting of three young men of Palestinian descent, all age 20, who were attending a Thanksgiving holiday gathering near the University of Vermont campus on Saturday evening. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested Jason J. Eaton, 48, while conducting a search of the shooting area in Burlington at 3:38pm on Sunday, the Burlington Police Department said in a statement. Authorities collected evidence during a search of Eaton’s apartment in a building in front of the shooting location. He was scheduled to be arraigned yesterday, police said. The attack that injured the three men at about 6:25pm on Saturday might have been a hate crime, authorities have said. Two of the men were in stable condition and the other suffered “much more serious injuries,” Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad said in a statement on Sunday.
AUSTRALIA
Home affairs head fired
The government yesterday fired the head of the Department of Home Affairs known as an immigration hardliner following an investigation into WhatsApp messages he reportedly sent to sway senior politicians. Michael Pezzullo was sacked after a two-month independent probe found he had breached the public service’s code of conduct at least 14 times. Allegations against Pezzullo included failing to act apolitically, using his power to benefit himself, and engaging in “gossip and disrespectful critique” of ministers and colleagues, the public service commission said. In one WhatsApp message to a Liberal Party power broker, he reportedly called for a “right winger” to be installed as his minister responsible for immigration, adding: “People smugglers will be watching.”
INDIA
Rescuers digging by hand
Military engineers were yesterday preparing to dig by hand to reach 41 workers trapped in a collapsed road tunnel for 16 days. Soldiers plan to use a so-called “rat-hole mining” technique, digging by hand to clear the rocks and rubble over the remaining 9m, with temperatures plummeting in Uttarakhand state. Last week, engineers working to drive a metal pipe horizontally through 57m of rock and concrete ran into metal girders and construction vehicles buried in the earth, snapping a giant earth-boring drilling machine. The broken parts of the machine stuck inside the tunnel have been removed,” senior local civil servant Abhishek Ruhela said. “Preparations are being made to start manual drilling work.”
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
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