AUSTRALIA
Egg shortage hits chain
McDonald’s fast-food outlets have cut breakfast service hours as bird flu outbreaks in the country hit egg supplies. “We are carefully managing supply of eggs due to the current industry challenges,” McDonald’s Australia said in a message to customers this week. As a result, breakfast orders would stop at 10:30am instead of midday, it said. “We are working hard with our suppliers to return this back to normal as soon as possible,” it said. Authorities said H7 avian influenza has emerged at about a dozen poultry farms across Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. The government said chickens at the infected farms have been “depopulated” — a euphemism for extermination.
RUSSIA
Full-face veil banned
Islamic authorities in the mostly-Muslim North Caucasus region of Dagestan on Wednesday temporarily banned women from wearing the niqab full-face veil, after simultaneous attacks targeting churches and synagogues killed 22 last month. In a statement posted on the Telegram messenger app, the Dagestan Muftiate said it was introducing a “temporary” ban on the niqab after an appeal from the Ministry of Nationality Policy and Religious Affairs. Reports following the attacks on June 23 said one of the gunmen had planned to escape wearing a niqab. The muftiate, a religious organization representing Dagestani Muslims, said that the ban would remain in place “until the identified threats are eliminated and a new theological conclusion is reached.”
AUSTRALIA
Child’s remains found
Police yesterday found the remains of a 12-year-old girl, two days after she was snatched by a crocodile while swimming in a remote creek in the north. The remains were found in the river system near where the girl vanished at the indigenous community of Palumpa in the Northern Territory, police Senior Sergeant Erica Gibson said. Injuries confirmed a crocodile attack, Gibson said. “The recovery has been made. It was particularly gruesome and a sad, devastating outcome,” Gibson told reporters. Efforts were continuing to trap the killer crocodile, she said. Saltwater crocodiles are territorial and the killer is likely to remain in nearby waterways. The crocodile population has exploded across the country’s tropical north since they became a protected species under Australian law in 1970s. Because saltwater crocodiles can live up to 70 years and grow throughout their lives — reaching up to 7m in length — the proportion of large crocodiles is also rising.
JAPAN
Floppy-disk war ends
The government has finally eliminated the use of floppy disks in all its systems, two decades since their heyday, reaching a long-awaited milestone in a campaign to modernize the bureaucracy. By the middle of last month, the Digital Agency had scrapped all 1,034 regulations governing their use, except for one environmental stricture related to vehicle recycling. “We have won the war on floppy disks on June 28!” Minister for Digital Transformation Taro Kono, who has been vocal about wiping out fax machines and other analogue technology in government, told Reuters in a statement on Wednesday. The Digital Agency was set up during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, when a scramble to roll out nationwide testing and vaccination revealed that the government still relied on paper filing and outdated technology.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
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