AFGHANISTAN
Fifty killed in flash flooding
Flash flooding has killed at least 50 people in Ghor Province, police said yesterday, a week after hundreds were washed away in the north. The floods on Friday also destroyed about 2,000 houses, and damaged thousands more homes and businesses, Ghor police spokesman Abdul Rahman Badri said in a statement. The fresh flooding comes as survivors of the flash floods on Friday last week in northern Baghlan Province continue to search for missing relatives. “Fifty residents of Ghor Province were killed by the floods on Friday and a number of others are missing,” Badri said. “These terrible floods have also killed thousands of cattle... They have destroyed hundreds of hectares of agricultural land, hundreds of bridges and culverts, and destroyed thousands of trees,” he added.
UNITED STATES
Actor Dabney Coleman dies
Dabney Coleman, a character actor who brought a glorious touch of smarm to the screen in playing comedic villains, mean-spirited bosses and outright jerks in films such as 9 to 5 and Tootsie, has died at age 92. Coleman “took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely” in his Santa Monica, California, home on Thursday, his daughter Quincy Coleman said in a statement on Friday on behalf of the family. While best remembered for his arrogant, unctuous and uncaring characters, Coleman said it was all an act. “It’s me kidding around,” Coleman once told the New York Times. Not all of Coleman’s characters were cads. He won an Emmy playing a lawyer in the 1987 television movie Sworn to Silence and a federal security official in 1983’s WarGames.
UNITED STATES
Xi-Putin hug ‘nice’: official
The White House on Friday said that it had not seen any surprising advance in relations between China and Russia despite Russian President Vladimir Putin exchanging a hug with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on a visit to Beijing. “Exchanging hugs? Well, that’s nice for them,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told a briefing when asked about the significance of photographs showing the two US adversaries locked in an embrace. “I’m not good at talking about personal human bodily affection one way or the other. I think I’ll leave it to these two gents to talk about why they thought it was good to hug one another,” Kirby said.
UNITED KINGDOM
McCartney is a billionaire
Paul McCartney is a billionaire Beatle, figures released on Friday showed. The annual Sunday Times Rich List calculated the wealth of the 81-year-old musician and his wife, Nancy Shevell, had grown by ￡50 million (US$63.32 million) since last year to ￡1 billion thanks to McCartney’s Got Back tour last year, the rising value of his back catalogue and Beyonce’s cover of The Beatles’ Blackbird on her Cowboy Carter album.
FRANCE
Stamp celebrates baguette
La Post on Friday rolled out a scratch-and-sniff postage stamp to celebrate the world-famous baguette, once described by President Emmanuel Macron as “250g of magic and perfection.” It was unveiled on Thursday, the day of Saint-Honore, the patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs. “The baguette, the bread of our daily lives, the symbol of our gastronomy, the jewel of our culture,” La Poste says on its Web site. The stamp, which costs 1.96 euros (US$2.14), depicts a baguette decorated with a blue-white-red ribbon, and has a “bakery scent.”
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
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