NEW ZEALAND
Gas pumps hit by bug
Some pumps at gas stations yesterday stopped working due to a “leap year glitch” in payment software, fuel stations and the payment service provider said. Allied Fuel, Gull, Z Energy and BP all confirmed some self-service fuel pumps they operate across the nation were not working due to issues with the payment system used. John Scott, chief executive officer of Invenco Group, which provides the payment software solution, said the system had stopped working due to a “leap-year glitch.” This was now fixed and just needed to be rolled out to affected fuel pumps, Scott said. It was only an issue in New Zealand code and while Invenco was unsure how it had happened, it would investigate the glitch over the coming days, he said.
HAITI
Election timeline set
Caribbean leaders on Wednesday said that Haitian Minister Ariel Henry has agreed to hold general elections by the middle of next year as the international community pushes to raise money for a foreign armed force to fight gang violence there. Members of the Caricom regional trade bloc issued a statement at the end of a four-day summit in Guyana saying that Henry agreed there is a need to hold elections and work with the opposition and civil society groups to achieve that goal.
UNITED STATES
Funding deal advances
Congressional leaders on Wednesday said that they had reached a tentative agreement to prevent a government shutdown for now, days before the deadline. Under the new plan, Congress would temporarily fund one set of federal agencies through March 8 and another set through March 22. In the meantime, Congress would try to draft and pass packages of legislation to fund the government for the remainder of the budget year.
UNITED STATES
McConnell to step down
Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell on Wednesday said that he would step down this year from his leadership role, ending a record-setting tenure. McConnell has represented Kentucky in the Senate since 1985 and has been his party’s leader since 2007. “I turned 82 last week. The end of my contributions are closer than I prefer,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “Father Time remains undefeated. I’m no longer the young man sitting in the back hoping colleagues remember my name. It’s time for the next generation of leadership.” His tenure of nearly 17 years as a Senate party leader is the longest on record.
UNITED STATES
Illinois removes Trump
A judge in Illinois on Wednesday ordered former president Donald Trump stricken off the state’s primary ballot over his role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. The decision by Cook County Circuit Judge Tracie Porter comes as similar measures have cropped up in several states, including a Colorado ruling now before the Supreme Court. The question before the nine justices is whether Trump, the presumed Republican presidential candidate, is ineligible to appear on the Republican presidential primary ballot in Colorado because he engaged in an insurrection. Trump said that the Illinois decision was politically motivated and unjust. “Democrat front-groups continue to attempt to interfere in the election and deny President Trump his rightful place on the ballot,” Trump’s campaign said, vowing to appeal the decision. Porter put her decision on pause until today to allow an appeal.
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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