I GLOBAL NEWZ

Crews worked through the night to restore power, but some homes were likely to remain affected until Monday evening, United Energy, majority-owned by Hong Kong’s CK Infrastructure Holdings, said. (Representational photo) More than 10,000 homes in Australia’s second most populous state were stuck without power on Monday as a surge in demand amid scorching heat overloaded the grid, in the latest blow to the nation’s stretched power sector. The outages on distribution networks, which hit more than 50,000 homes on Sunday, came less than a year after Australia’s biggest city, Sydney, was hit by blackouts during a heatwave, and 16 months after a state-wide outage in South Australia. The latest blackouts, however, were caused by grid failures, rather than supply shortages, which had sparked a national debate over the nation’s rush to adopt renewable energy at the expense of coal-fired generation. Temperatures topped 40 degrees C (104°F) over the weekend in the state of Victoria,...

Malaysia’s top court said in a landmark decision on Monday that both parents must consent to the religious conversion of a minor. (File photo) Malaysia’s top court said in a landmark decision on Monday that both parents must consent to the religious conversion of a minor, ruling unanimously in favour of a Hindu woman whose ex-husband converted their three children to Islam without telling her. The ruling ended a nine-year legal tussle for M  Indira Gandhi , whose former husband became a Muslim and converted their three children in 2009. He also snatched their daughter, then 11 months old, from the family home. She won custody of the three children and challenged their conversions in civil courts of Malaysia’s dual-court system. A lower court annulled them, but the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling, saying civil courts had no jurisdiction over Islamic conversions. The ruling was appealed to the nation’s highest court. The five-member panel in the Federal Court foun...

The project is one of 18 national key research and development plans set by the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2016. As a new and cutting-edge transit technology, high-speed magnetic levitation railway has attracted huge attention. (Representational Image) China has approved a technical plan to build magnetic levitation train which can run at 600 kmph, said state-run CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co., Ltd, the initiator of the research project. The technical plan was reviewed by 19 academicians and experts. After queries and discussion, the reviewing team affirmed the plan and approved it unanimously on January 25, official media here reported Daturday. The project is one of 18 national key research and development plans set by the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2016. As a new and cutting-edge transit technology, high-speed magnetic levitation railway has attracted huge attention. Japan’s superconducting magnetic levitation train reached a top test speed of 603 kmph, an...

The killings occurred in a dancing club named “Forro do Gago” in Fortaleza city in Ceará when a group of heavily armed gunmen barged into the party and began to shoot at the people, Xinhua reported (Representational Image) At least 14 people were killed and six others injured during a shootout at a club in Brazil on Saturday, police said. The killings occurred in a dancing club named “Forro do Gago” in Fortaleza city in Ceará when a group of heavily armed gunmen barged into the party and began to shoot at the people, Xinhua reported. At least two of the injured are in critical condition. Eyewitnesses said that bullet marks could be found on the walls of the club, nearby houses and vehicles parked around. Even though it rained on Saturday, bloodstain can still be seen in front of the club. According to police, the shooting was “well planned” and the agents were searching for the suspects with a helicopter overseeing the security situations in the region. The police have star...

“We call on Chinese authorities to explain the reasons and legal basis for Mr. Gui’s arrest and detention,” said State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert. (Source: Reuters/File) The US State Department said on Saturday that it was deeply concerned that a Swedish citizen and Hong Kong-based bookseller, Gui Minhai, had been detained in China and called for him to be allowed to leave the country. The Swedish government has said that Gui, who has published books on the personal lives of President Xi Jinping and other Communist Party leaders, was taken into custody last week while traveling with Swedish diplomats to seek medical treatment in Beijing. The European Union’s ambassador to China has called on the Chinese authorities to release Gui immediately, echoing demands from Stockholm. “We are deeply concerned that Swedish citizen Gui Minhai was detained,” State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. “We call on Chinese authorities to explain the reas...

Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull attends a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra. (AP) The Australian government announced on Monday a new strategy to boost Australia into the ranks of the top 10 defense industry exporting countries within a decade. The government will create a 3.8 billion Australian dollar (USD 3.1 billion) fund to lend to exporters that banks are reluctant to finance, Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne said. Australia is the 20th largest defense exporter with most of its exports including the Bushmaster armored vehicle and the Nulka missile decoy sold to the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand. The aim of boosting Australia into the top 10 defence exporters was “very realistic,” Pyne said “Australia has a very sophisticated defence industry, but we’ve never had a government until this one that’s been determined to drive that into exports in order to grow jobs and the economy,” Pyne told Australian Broadcasting Corp...

US President Donald Trump, who has garnered a large following on social media with rambunctious postings, said he sometimes tweets from bed, though he occasionally allows others to post his words. Trump frequently uses Twitter to announce policy, assail his adversaries and to tangle with countries, including North Korea, over world affairs. The @realDonaldTrump account had 47.2 million users as of Sunday. In an interview with Britain’s ITV channel, he appeared to appreciate the wide impact of his postings in Twitter and said that he needed social media to communicate with voters in the era of what he termed fake news. “If I don’t have that form of communication I can’t defend myself,” Trump said in an interview broadcast on Sunday. “I get a lot of fake news, a lot of news that is very false or made up.” It was a crazy situation, he said, that many people in the world waited for his tweets. He usually tweets himself, sometimes from bed. When asked about whether he was lyin...