AUSTRALIA
Killer crocodile shot dead
Rangers have shot dead a 4.2m crocodile after it killed a 12-year-old girl while she was swimming with her family last week, police said yesterday. The girl’s death was the first fatal crocodile attack in the Northern Territory since 2018. Wildlife rangers had been attempting to trap or shoot the crocodile since the girl was attacked in Mango Creek near Palumpa, an Outback indigenous community in the Northern Territory. They shot the animal on Sunday after getting permission from the region’s traditional landowners. Police said that an analysis had confirmed the animal was the one that killed the girl. “The events of last week have had a huge impact on the family and local police are continuing to provide support to everyone impacted,” Senior Sergeant Erica Gibson said. Northern Territory-based crocodile scientist Grahame Webb said a reptile the size of the one shot had to be male and at least 30 years old.
CHINA
Man caught with snakes
A man has been caught trying to smuggle more than 100 live snakes into the nation by cramming them into his trousers, customs officials said in a statement on Tuesday. The unnamed traveler was stopped by customs officers as he sought to exit Hong Kong and into the border city of Shenzhen, the statement said. “Upon inspection, customs officers discovered that the pockets of the trousers the passenger was wearing were packed with six canvas drawstring bags and sealed with tape,” it said. “Once opened, each bag was found to contain living snakes in all kinds of shapes, sizes and colors.” Officers seized 104 of the reptiles, including milk snakes and corn snakes, many of which were non-native species. An accompanying video showed two border agents peering into transparent plastic bags filled with squirming red, pink and white snakes. “Those who break the rules will be ... held liable in accordance with the law,” the statement said, without specifying the man’s punishment.
INDIA
Nine rhinoceroses drown
More than 150 animals, nine of them one-horned rhinoceroses, have drowned in floods at the Kaziranga National Park in Assam state, authorities said. The Kaziranga National Park, with almost one-third of its camps flooded, is home to nearly half of the global population of one-horned rhinos, which stands at about 4,000. The weather department yesterday said that heavy rainfall is expected to lash northern and northeastern states for the next two or three days.
UNITED STATES
Hawaii airport evacuated
A Hawaii airport on Tuesday was briefly evacuated after a Japanese man was found with two inert grenades in his hand luggage, police said following his arrest. Officers cleared the terminal while a bomb squad moved in to investigate the suspicious items, which were picked up on an X-ray machine. “The Hilo International Airport experienced a brief halt in operations” for little over an hour, Hawaii police said in a statement. The bomb squad “determined the items to be inert grenades,” police reported, meaning they were not dangerous. A 41-year-old Japanese man was arrested on a “terroristic threatening” charge and remains in custody, police said. “Police remind the public that replicas of explosives, such as hand grenades, are prohibited in checked and carry-on baggage.”
‘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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