Category: English

SYDNEY — Two women have drowned in separate accidents in the northeastern Australian state of Queensland.

Queensland Police said on Wednesday that a woman who went missing while floating down a river northwest of Brisbane on Tuesday has been found dead.

The 53-year-old woman fell into fast-moving water at about 2:30 p.m. local time and did not resurface, triggering a search operation involving a helicopter, drone and water rescue crews.

She was found dead on Wednesday afternoon. Queensland Police said the death is being treated as non-suspicious.

Earlier on Wednesday, a woman died in a scuba diving incident.

A spokesperson for the Queensland Ambulance Service said that five crews were sent to Wave Break Island, a popular swimming, snorkeling and diving spot 60 km southeast of Brisbane, after the woman was pulled unresponsive from the ocean at about 10:10 a.m.

Ambulance crews treated the woman but she was declared dead at the scene.

More than 30 people have drowned across Australia since the start of summer on Dec. 1, according to data from Royal Life Saving Australia.

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NEW DELHI — Five members of a family, including four children and their mother, were found dead inside a hotel in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, local police confirmed.

The incident occurred in the state’s capital city Lucknow. The dead children included two minors aged 9 and 16.

According to the police, a brother of the dead children had been arrested. He allegedly cut the deceased’s wrists for killing them following a family dispute.

The family belonged to Agra city, around 350 km away from Lucknow, and checked into the hotel on Monday.

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MOSCOW — A new tourist tax has come into effect across Russia on Wednesday, replacing the previous resort fee, RIA Novosti news agency reported on Wednesday.

From Jan. 1, 2025, travelers staying in hotels and other accommodations will contribute an additional 1 percent of their lodging costs, marking the start of a phased plan to bolster regional tourism infrastructure.

The tax was introduced as part of amendments to the Russian Tax Code in July 2024, which added a new chapter titled “Tourist Tax,” granting regional authorities discretion to implement the tax as a local levy. Many regions, particularly those with established or emerging tourism industries, have already embraced the initiative.

Under the current framework, the tourist tax will begin at a rate of 1 percent in 2025 and gradually rise to 3 percent by 2027. To ensure a baseline contribution, a minimum daily charge of 100 rubles (0.9 U.S. dollar) has been established.

While hotels and other lodging providers are technically the taxpayers, the cost will be incorporated into the price of accommodations, thus being passed to tourists.

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HONG KONG — Three men were killed and four other people injured in a fatal traffic accident early Wednesday in Hong Kong, police said.

The accident involving six vehicles happened in Mong Kok at around 1:44 a.m. local time, the Hong Kong Police Force said in a statement, adding that it is still investigating the case.

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SAN FRANCISCO — A 29-year-old man was shot and killed across the street from the Harvard Market in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood early Tuesday.

Police responded to sounds of gunfire shortly before 3 a.m. where they found the man with multiple gunshot wounds in his torso, police said.

Police are searching for the suspected shooter, who fled the area before officers arrived, according to the police.

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SAN FRANCISCO — An Hawaiian Airlines flight headed toward Honolulu from Seattle turned around shortly after takeoff on Monday because the crew reported smoke in the cockpit of the Airbus A330, The Seattle Times reported Tuesday, citing the Federal Aviation Administration.

At around 1 p.m. Monday Pacific Standard Time, Hawaiian Airlines Flight 21 landed safely back at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, according to the FAA’s website. The agency is investigating the incident.

Hawaiian Airlines said the smoke was not visible and characterized it as fumes.

“The captain declared an emergency to obtain priority handling and the Airbus A330 landed at SEA without incident,” Hawaiian Airlines spokesperson Marissa Villegas said in a statement. “As a precaution, medical and fire personnel met the aircraft at the gate, and all 273 passengers and 10 crew members deplaned safely.”

Flight 21 took off successfully Tuesday morning on a new aircraft, Villegas said.

SeaTac-based Alaska Air Group completed its acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines in September. The two airlines are in the process of combining their operations, according to The Seattle Times’ report.

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DAMASCUS — A car bomb exploded in the northern Aleppo town of Tel Rifaat on Tuesday, injuring at least four people, including a child, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Ambulances rushed to the scene amid a heavy security deployment.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Recent reports indicate that the Syrian National Army, a Turkish-backed military group, entered Tel Rifaat on Tuesday as part of an offensive to counter the Kurdish Workers’ Party and Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, both viewed as terrorist organizations by Türkiye.

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LONDON — The year 2024 has been one of the deadliest for journalists in recent history, with 122 media workers killed worldwide, the International Federation of Journalists revealed on Tuesday.

The Brussels-based organization described the year as “one of the deadliest” for the profession, with an average of one journalist killed every three days.

“Our thoughts are with the families and friends of 122 media professionals killed this year. Behind this high figure, there are 122 truncated stories,” said IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger.

The IFJ, the world’s largest union of journalists’ trade unions, reiterated its call for stronger protections for media workers and accountability for their killers

“To guarantee that the deaths of journalists do not go unpunished and to put an end to this scourge once and for all, we urge UN member states to take steps to ensure the adoption of a binding convention on the safety of journalists,” added Belanger.

The report, initially published on Dec. 10 but updated to reflect deaths in the final weeks of the year, highlighted the Middle East and Arab world as the most dangerous region, with 77 media professionals killed in 2024.

This figure, representing over 63 percent of the global total, was driven by conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, where 71 journalists lost their lives.

The Asia-Pacific region ranked second, with 22 killings, concentrated in Pakistan (seven), Bangladesh (five), and Myanmar, where the military junta has continued to target journalists.

In Africa, 10 journalists were killed, with Sudan bearing the brunt amid a civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces that has raged since April 2023, claiming six media professionals’ lives.

The Americas and Europe recorded nine and four journalist killings, respectively, with deadly incidents reported in war zones such as Ukraine and Haiti. In Haiti, two journalists were recently killed when gunmen opened fire at a press conference to announce the reopening of the country’s largest public hospital.

The IFJ also reported a sharp rise in the number of imprisoned journalists, with 516 media workers detained globally as of Dec. 31, up from 427 in 2023 and 375 in 2022. China and Israel led the list of countries with the highest number of incarcerated journalists.

Meanwhile, a December report by Reporters Without Borders found that 55 journalists remain held hostage, primarily in Syria and Yemen, and 95 are missing.

AN/31 Dec, 2024/20:10

NEW YORK — A blackout hit nearly all of Puerto Rico early Tuesday as the U.S. territory prepared to celebrate New Year’s Eve, leaving more than 1.3 million clients without power, according to official source.

“The outage hit at dawn, plunging the island into an eerie silence as electrical appliances and air conditioners shut down before those who could afford generators turned them on,” said The Associated Press about the accident.

Nearly 90 percent of 1.47 million clients across Puerto Rico were left in the dark, according to Luma Energy, a private company that oversees electricity transmission and distribution.

The company said it was activating emergency operations to restore power and described the blackout as “systemwide,” while restoring power could take up to two days.

“Puerto Rico has faced a series of blackouts since 2017, when Hurricane Maria severely damaged the island, including its power grid,” reported The New York Times.

The blackout appeared to be significantly bigger than the outages this summer. A blackout in June left about 350,000 customers without power. In August, 700,000 lost power in the wake of Hurricane Ernesto.

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BERLIN — Several people were injured, including two hospitalized, in a random knife attack in western Berlin on New Year’s Eve, German police reported Tuesday.

The incident took place around 11:50 a.m. outside a supermarket in Charlottenburg, a typically quiet district of the capital, according to German newspaper Bild.

Witnesses said the assailant stabbed indiscriminately before several passers-by intervened and subdued him.

Emergency services responded shortly after, and the suspect was taken into police custody. German news agency dpa reported that there is currently no indication of a terrorist motive behind the attack.

Police have not released further details about the incident or the victims yet, and the investigation is ongoing.

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