JAPAN
Fuji gets first snow of winter
The peak of Mount Fuji was yesterday capped with snow for the first time this winter, reaching the milestone 21 days later than the average since records began in 1894, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. This year’s snowfall came two weeks earlier than last year, when snow settled on the 3,776m mountain on Nov. 7, the latest since records began. Japan recorded its highest-ever temperature in August when it reached 41.8°C in Isesaki, northwest of Tokyo.
Photo: Kyodo News via Reuters
CHINA
Central Committee replaces 11
The elite Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party replaced 11 members at a key meeting, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, marking its highest personnel turnover since 2017 amid an ongoing military anti-corruption purge. The statement was released on the last day of a key closed-door meeting of the 300-plus member body in Beijing known as the Fourth Plenum, which also discussed a forthcoming five-year economic development plan. Veteran General Zhang Shengmin (張升民), 67, was promoted to second-ranked vice chair of the powerful Central Military Commission, the statement said. He replaces He Weidong (何衛東), the former second-ranked vice chair who was expelled from the party on Friday on corruption charges.
FRANCE
Firefighters probed over party
The Paris Fire Brigade has opened an internal investigation into accusations that several firefighters attended a party where revelers dressed in blackface and Ku Klux Klan outfits, the force said on Wednesday. Two of its number are suspected of blacking up while off duty at the fancy dress evening on Saturday, which was organized by a parachuting club at the aerodrome of Brienne-le-Chateau, it added. Images on social media showed five attendees, dressed in the white robes and pointy hoods of the infamous US white supremacists, pretending to strangle three others, who had their faces painted black. French Parachuting Federation president Yves-Marie Guillaud called the images “vile,” adding that the federation would press charges against the eight people involved, as well as the person behind the camera.
UNITED STATES
National debt soars
The government’s gross national debt on Wednesday surpassed US$38 trillion amid a federal government shutdown, a record number that highlights the accelerating accumulation of debt on the US’ balance sheet. It is also the fastest accumulation of US$1 trillion in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic — the US hit US$37 trillion in gross national debt in August. A growing debt load over time ultimately leads to higher inflation, eroding Americans’ purchasing power, said University of Pennsylvania economics professor Kent Smetters, who served in the Department of the Treasury under former president George W. Bush.
IRELAND
23 protesters arrested
Twenty-three people were on Wednesday arrested as hundreds of protesters and police clashed for the second consecutive night outside an asylum-seeker hotel near Dublin, authorities said. The arrests came after bottles, bricks and fireworks were launched at police officers at the protest outside the Citywest Hotel in Saggart, police said in a statement. It followed at least six arrests after tensions flared at a protest at the hotel on Tuesday night — when a police van was also set on fire — and the first protest, which passed off peacefully on Monday.
