News Headlines - 05 October 2019
▽North Korea breaks off nuclear talks with U.S. in Sweden - Reuters
Working-level nuclear talks in Sweden between officials from Pyongyang and Washington have broken off, North Korea’s top negotiator said late on Saturday, dashing prospects for an end to months of stalemate.
The talks, at an isolated conference center on the outskirts of Stockholm, were the first such formal discussion since U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met in June and agreed to restart negotiations that stalled after a failed summit in Vietnam in February.
The protests in Hong Kong are a "Hong Kong-version of a colour revolution" and cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely, China has said in its harshest comments yet on the violence in the city.
The comments from the central government's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) signal a turning point and show that Beijing's patience is wearing thin, said experts who believe they could herald increasingly hardline actions from the mainland in the days ahead.
On Friday (Oct 4), Hong Kong's embattled Chief Executive Carrie Lam invoked emergency powers to ban face masks at public protests, effective Saturday.
▽Death toll from KyoAni fire rises to 36 | NHK WORLD
The death toll in the arson attack on a Kyoto Animation studio in July rose to 36 on Friday.
Police say a woman in her 20s died from her burns in hospital. The victim was a studio employee and had been on the first floor of the building at the time of the attack.
She suffered burns all over her body before escaping the building.
▽Six elephants die at Khao Yai waterfall
A team of park officials who were pushing elephants back into the forest from Highway 3077 in Prachin Buri heard loud elephant calls coming from Samor Poon creek near the waterfall at around 3am on Saturday.
At around 6am, they went to check and found an elephant calf, aged around 3 years, drowned on the first tier of the waterfall. Two elephants were spotted trying to help the calf. They looked exhausted.
The officials went down to the area below the waterfall and found five more elephants drowned, said Khanchit Srinoppawan, chief of the national park.
▽Nigeria's royal tortoise said to have lived to the age of 344 in Oyo state - BBC News
A royal palace in Nigeria has announced that its resident tortoise has died following a short illness, saying it was a remarkable 344 years old.
The tortoise, named Alagba, meaning elderly one, lived in the palace of Ogbomoso in Oyo state... The revered reptile was apparently brought to the palace by the kingdom's third leader, Isan Okumoyede, who reigned from 1770 to 1797.
However, Isan Okumoyede reigned just over 200 years ago. This means the tortoise would have already been 100 when she was found, for her to have reached the grand old age of 344.
