SOUTH KOREA
Embassy deletes video
The Israeli embassy removed a video showing an imaginary scenario in which Koreans are attacked by masked assailants in Seoul, a reference to Hamas, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The ministry said in a statement that the video was deemed “inappropriate” and that it had asked the Israeli embassy to take it down. The video, which is no longer available on the embassy’s social media, depicted a distressing scenario in which a South Korean woman in the capital is abducted by an armed assailant on Christmas Day and forcibly separated from her young daughter, a clip published by South Korean broadcaster YTN showed. The Israeli embassy wrote, alongside the now-removed video posted on its Facebook account on Tuesday: “On October 7th, Israel was attacked by Hamas terrorists. 1,200 men, women and children were killed, and over 240 people were taken hostage in Gaza. Imagine if it happened to you. What would you do?”
UNITED STATES
Decades-old body identified
Remains found by hikers in a shallow grave 47 years ago near a lake on the border of Arizona and Nevada have been identified. The man was Luis Alonso Paredes, who was from El Salvador, but might have been living or working in the Las Vegas area at the time of his death, the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office announced on Tuesday. The remains were discovered on Nov. 23, 1976, in a desert area in northwestern Arizona, just east of Lake Mohave. An autopsy at the time revealed that the victim was likely in his early to mid-30s and had been shot in the head at close range, the sheriff’s office said. However, despite authorities collecting fingerprints during the autopsy, the case soon went cold and the victim remained nameless for close to five decades.
AUSTRIA
Inventor of Glock guns dies
Gaston Glock, the Austrian developer of the handgun that bears his name, died on Wednesday. He was 94. The Glock company announced his death, the Austria Press Agency reported. Glock, a reclusive engineer, founded the company in 1963 in Deutsch-Wagram, near Vienna. It has since expanded worldwide, including a US subsidiary founded in 1985. Glock handguns are used by police and some countries’ military forces, as well as private customers. The weapon was significantly lighter, cheaper and more reliable than the models available when it was created. Glock said on its Web site that its founder “not only revolutionized the world of small arms in the 1980s, but also succeeded in establishing the Glock brand as the global leader in the handgun industry.”
RUSSIA
Plane lands on frozen river
A Soviet-era Antonov 24 aircraft carrying 30 passengers landed on a frozen river near an airport in Russia’s east yesterday because of pilot error, transport prosecutors said. The Polar Airlines An-24 landed safely on the Kolyma River near Zyryanka in the Yakutia region, the prosecutors said. “According to preliminary information, the cause of the aviation incident was an error by the crew in piloting the aircraft,” a spokesperson for the Eastern Siberian transport prosecutor said in a statement. Prosecutors published pictures of the aircraft on a frozen river. The Izvestia newspaper published pictures of passengers disembarking. “The An-24 aircraft landed outside of the runway of the Zyryanka airport,” Polar Airlines said in a short statement. “There were no casualties.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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