FRANCE
Mayotte braces for storm
Residents of Mayotte yesterday braced for a storm expected to bring strong winds and flash floods less than a month after the Indian Ocean archipelago was devastated by a deadly cyclone. The territory was placed on red alert on Saturday in anticipation of the passage of Dikeledi, a storm forecast to skirt about 100km south of Mayotte. It hit the northern coast of Madagascar as a cyclone on Saturday evening and weakened into a severe tropical storm, but is expected to regain intensity as it moves toward Mayotte. It could be reclassified as a cyclone by this morning, Meteo-France said.
THAILAND
Killed for gratitude: suspect
A man accused of killing a former Cambodian opposition lawmaker in Bangkok said he committed the crime to repay someone who helped him during a tough period in his life, police said yesterday. Ekkalak Paenoi on Saturday confessed to the crime in a livestream video after being charged with premeditated murder and unauthorized gun ownership. Lim Kimya, a former lawmaker for the dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party, was gunned down on Tuesday last week by a motorcyclist as he arrived in Bangkok by bus from Cambodia with his French wife. Ekkalak — who Thai media have said was a former marine — was arrested in Cambodia on Wednesday, before being extradited to Thailand on Saturday. “The shooter said he took this job to pay a debt of gratitude to someone who had helped him during a tough period after he was sacked from the navy,” said Attaporn Wongsiripreeda, a senior police official in Bangkok. Some Thai media reports said he was paid 60,000 baht (US$1,727), but Attaporn told a local broadcaster that Ekkalak claimed he did not receive payment.
FRANCE
Dozens injured in tram crash
Two trams on Saturday collided in a tunnel in a rare accident in the eastern city of Strasbourg, injuring dozens of people, authorities said. The collision occurred near Strasbourg’s main train station, one of the busiest in France outside Paris. Minister of Transport Philippe Tabarot said that “probably around 36” people were injured in the accident, while authorities later put that figure at 68. A video posted by a witness on social media showed a chaotic scene with the two trams significantly damaged in a tunnel near the station. One of the trams appeared to have derailed as a result of the impact, the cause of which has yet to be established.
SCOTLAND
Captured lynx dies
One of four lynx thought to have been released illegally in the Highlands died within hours after it was captured, wildlife authorities said on Saturday. The medium-sized wildcats extinct in Scotland for hundreds of years were spotted in the snowy Cairngorms National Park last week, raising concerns that a private breeder had illegally released the predators into the wild. The lynx that died was one of a pair captured on Friday. “This unfortunate development just serves to further demonstrate the folly of abandoning these amazing animals in the wild, with no preparation or real concern for their welfare,” Royal Zoological Society of Scotland head of conservation and science programs Helen Senn said. Wildlife experts have speculated that the cats were released by someone who took matters into their own hands because they were frustrated by the slow process of securing government approval or an opponent who wanted to create problems that would block the reintroduction effort.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
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