NORTH KOREA
Kim’s sister vows response
The powerful sister of leader Kim Jong-un yesterday slammed South Korean “scum” for launching anti-regime propaganda leaflets across the border using balloons, warning they would pay “a very high price.” Since late May, Pyongyang has floated numerous balloons carrying trash toward South Korea, saying they were a tit-for-tat action against South Korean leaflets. In a statement carried by state media, Kim Yo-jong said that “dirty leaflets and things of [the South Korean] scum” were found again yesterday morning. “We have fully introduced our countermeasure in such situation. The [South Korean] clans will be tired from suffering a bitter embarrassment and must be ready for paying a very high price for their dirty play,” she said.
FRANCE
Four killed in shooting
Four people, including the shooter, died late on Saturday after a man opened fire on a birthday party in a village, authorities said. The man approached a neighboring house where a 20-year-old was celebrating his birthday with his family in Espinasse-Vozelle. He fired shots at the party guests, killing three of them, and then himself, the local prefecture said. The young man celebrating his birthday and his father were both killed. Police were still piecing together the “how and the why” of the attack, authorities said. The man appears to have shot at passing motorists before the deadly assault.
UNITED KINGDOM
Man held after remains found
Police on Saturday said they have arrested a man in connection with the deaths of two men whose remains were found in two suitcases in southwest England. The Metropolitan Police said armed officers detained a 34-year-old suspect at a train station in Bristol early on Saturday. Police also said more human remains were found at an address in Shepherd’s Bush the previous day, believed to be connected to those found in the suitcases dumped near the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol on Wednesday.
UNITED STATES
Sex therapist Dr Ruth dies
Ruth Westheimer, the wildly successful sex therapist who became a pop culture phenomenon in the 1980s with her bluntly delivered advice on how to spice up the bedroom, has died, US media reported on Saturday. She was 96. People magazine, quoting her publicist and sometime coauthor Pierre Lehu, said she died on Friday. It gave no cause of death, but other reports said she died at home in New York with family members present. The German-born Westheimer, who lost both of her parents in the Holocaust, reached fame in her 50s when she began hosting a pioneering radio show in New York City called Sexually Speaking. Known simply as Dr Ruth, she capitalized on her late-in-life fame, going on to host a television show, appear in many films and coach millions of fans in dozens of books about how to have a more satisfying sex life.
UNITED STATES
Dolphins freed in stranding
Rescuers who helped free more than 100 dolphins from the Cape Cod shoreline in Massachusetts said they have confirmed that the mass stranding that began on June 28 was the largest involving dolphins in US history. The International Fund for Animal Welfare, which helped lead the rescue, said that a final review of data and aerial imagery this week revealed that a total of 146 dolphins were involved in the stranding. The group estimated that 102 dolphins survived the multiday event.
‘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
RELEASE: The move follows Washington’s removal of Havana from its list of terrorism sponsors. Most of the inmates were arrested for taking part in anti-government protests Cuba has freed 127 prisoners, including opposition leader Jose Daniel Ferrer, in a landmark deal with departing US President Joe Biden that has led to emotional reunions across the communist island. Ferrer, 54, is the most high-profile of the prisoners that Cuba began freeing on Wednesday after Biden agreed to remove the country from Washington’s list of terrorism sponsors — part of an eleventh-hour bid to cement his legacy before handing power on Monday to US president-elect Donald Trump. “Thank God we have him home,” Nelva Ortega said of her husband, Ferrer, who has been in and out of prison for the
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