VIETNAM
Nine sentenced to death
A court in Nghe An province yesterday sentenced nine people to death for their involvement in a cross-border drug trafficking ring, state media reported. At the end of a three-day trial, the court sentenced ringleader Tran Thi Mau, 56, and eight accomplices to death. Two others were given life sentences, online news site VNExpress reported. Mau and her ring members bought the drugs from Laos, hiring locals to illegally transport the goods to Vietnam through the jungle, reports said. The gang successfully trafficked 105kg of meth, heroin and synthetic drugs between late 2021 and their arrests in May 2022. The drugs were transported at night to avoid police detection, reports said.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Fergie’ has skin cancer
Sarah Ferguson (Fergie), the former wife of Prince Andrew, has been diagnosed with skin cancer, just months after undergoing an operation for a breast tumor, her spokesman said in a statement on Sunday. “Following her diagnosis with an early form of breast cancer this summer, Sarah, Duchess of York has now been diagnosed with malignant melanoma,” the spokesman said in a statement. Fergie, who thanked the medical team supporting her, had several moles removed and analyzed, one of which was cancerous, the spokesman said. “She is undergoing further investigations to ensure that this has been caught in the early stages,” he added.
CANADA
PM to address auto theft
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is holding a summit next month to coordinate a national response to a massive spike in auto thefts across the nation in recent years. Toronto has borne the brunt of the crime wave, data from the Canadian Finance and Leasing Association showed. The Toronto region saw 9,600 vehicles stolen in 2022, up 300 percent from 2015, while carjackings doubled in 2022 from 2021, police statistics showed. Overall, the year-on-year rate of vehicle theft spiked in 2022 by 50 percent in Quebec, 48.3 percent in Ontario and 34.5 percent in Atlantic Canada, a government news release said. “The scale of the issue around auto theft requires coordination between all governments, federal, provincial and municipal police forces, border services officers and auto manufacturers,” Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said in Montreal, where Trudeau’s Cabinet has gathered for winter meetings. The federal government is also working on the issue with “port authorities, rail and shipping companies, as well as manufacturer associations and the insurance industry,” the release said.
INDIA
Modi inaugurates temple
Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday fulfilled his party’s decades-long promise by consecrating a major Hindu temple in the north, marking a new milestone in his project to reshape the country into a more avowedly Hindu nation. Modi was the central focus of a ceremony at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, which started at about 12pm and was televised live across the nation. He strode into the inner sanctuary and performed a series of rituals before a newly minted 1.2m statue of Ram covered in gold and flowers, and flanked by priests in traditional saffron robes. The ceremony took place as Modi campaigns for a third term in elections in coming months. More than 7,000 guests were in attendance, including business leaders like Mukesh Ambani and Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan. Devotees believe the site to be the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home