AUSTRALIA
Rapper Yung Filly charged
A British YouTuber and rapper known as Yung Filly has been charged with raping and choking a woman in a hotel room following a performance. The 29-year-old, whose real name is Andres Felipe Valencia Barrientos, on Thursday was freed on bail after a court appearance in Perth on several charges, with police alleging his crimes were committed on Sept. 28. Barrientos was arrested in Brisbane on Tuesday, a police statement said. The Colombia-born entertainer was accused of assaulting a woman in her 20s in a hotel room after he had performed in a Perth nightclub. He is charged with four counts of rape, three counts of assault causing bodily harm and one count of impeding the woman’s normal breathing or circulation by applying pressure to her neck, police said.
Photo: AP
NEW ZEALAND
Minister defends captain
Minister for Defence Judith Collins on Thursday said that online remarks by “vile ... misogynistic ... armchair admirals” about the captain of a navy ship that ran aground, caught fire and sank off the coast of Samoa were false. “Seriously, it’s 2024,” Collins told reporters. “What the hell’s going on here?” After days of comments on social media directed at the sex of Commander Yvonne Gray, Collins urged the public to “be better.” Female members of the military had also faced verbal abuse in the street in New Zealand since the ship — one of nine in the country’s navy — was lost on Sunday, Collins said. All 75 people on board evacuated to safety after the vessel ran aground on the reef it was surveying off Upolu, Samoa’s most populous island. The cause of the incident is not known. “The one thing that we already know did not cause it is the gender of the ship’s captain, a woman with 30 years’ naval experience who on the night made the call to get her people to safety,” Collins said. One of the posters was a truck driver from Melbourne, Australia, she added. “I think that he should keep his comments to people who drive trucks rather than people who drive ships,” Collins said.
Photo: AP
UNITED STATES
Ethel Kennedy dies
Ethel Kennedy, the wife of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who raised their 11 children after he was assassinated, and remained dedicated to social causes and the family’s legacy for decades thereafter, died on Thursday, her family said. She was 96. “It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our amazing grandmother,” Joe Kennedy III wrote on X. “She died this morning from complications related to a stroke suffered last week. Along with a lifetime’s work in social justice and human rights, our mother leaves behind nine children, 34 grandchildren and 24 great-great-grandchildren, along with numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom love her dearly,” the family statement said. President Joe Biden called her “an American icon — a matriarch of optimism and moral courage, an emblem of resilience and service.” The Kennedy matriarch, mother to Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr, David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas and Rory, was one of the last remaining members of a family generation that included former president John F. Kennedy. She was by Robert F. Kennedy’s side when he was fatally shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, just after winning California’s Democratic presidential primary. Her brother-in-law John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas, less than five years earlier.
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
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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
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