08/09/2025

MONDAY | SEPT 8, 2025

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Funicular crash report points to cable problems LISBON: Problems with a cable likely caused a funicular railway here to hurtle down a hill, killing at least 16 people and injuring another 22 when it crashed, according to a preliminary report. The yellow tram-like carriage, which carries people up and down a steep hillside, hit a building after leaving the track on Wednesday, just metres from its twin at the bottom of a steep hill. Portugal’s Office for Air and Rail Accident Investigations on Saturday released its first report into the crash. The report said the cabins had travelled “not more than about six metres” when they “suddenly lost the balancing force provided by the cable connecting them”. “Cabin No 2 suddenly reversed, its movement halting approximately 10m beyond due to its partial excursion past the end of the track and the burial of the underside of the trambolho (trolley) at the end of the cable trench,” it said. “Cabin No 1, at the top of Calcada da Gloria, continued its downward movement, increasing in speed. “The cabin’s brakeman applied the pneumatic brake and hand brake. These actions had no effect in stopping or reducing the cabin’s speed.” An examination of the wreckage showed “the connecting cable had given way” at the attachment point. – Reuters GANG KILLS BOYS AGED 12, 15 IN MELBOURNE SYDNEY: A gang of masked attackers armed with machetes stabbed and killed two boys aged 12 and 15 in Melbourne, police said yesterday. Up to eight people in a suspected youth gang attacked the children separately in nearby locations in western Melbourne on Saturday evening, they said. Police were first called to a street where they found a 12-year-old boy who had been stabbed, said Graham Banks, police detective inspector in the state of Victoria. Soon after, police found the boy’s 15-year-old friend in a nearby street with “significant” stab wounds. He could not be saved. Witnesses and CCTV images indicated the killings were carried out by the same group of up to eight people carrying machetes and knives. – AFP ‘GREAT WHITE SHARK LIKELY KILLED SURFER’ SYDNEY: Australian biologists said yesterday a great white shark measuring up to 3.6m likely killed a 57-year-old surfer off Sydney this weekend. The experienced surfer, identified by media as Mercury Psillakis, was mauled to death by a shark on Saturday off a popular beach in northern Sydney. Biologists with the New South Wales government were called in to assess the species of shark involved in the latest deadly encounter.“NSW government shark biologists have assessed photographs of the victim’s surfboard and determined a White shark approximately 3.4-3.6m in length was likely responsible,” a state spokesperson said. Authorities said they had deployed two extra smart drumlines – anchored buoys with baited hooks that send an alert when a shark bites and also allow the animals to be tagged with trackers. – AFP

BR I E F S

Protesters marching through downtown Chicago. – REUTERSPIC

Chicago ‘war’ warning “Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator,” he said.

Demonstrators in DC carried inverted US flags as they marched past the country’s national monuments, traditionally a symbol of a country facing existential peril. Trump’s troop and federal agent deployments – which first began in June in Los Angeles, followed by Washington – have prompted legal challenges and protests, with critics calling them an authoritarian show of force. Local officials in Los Angeles spoke out against the deployments and the violent tactics employed by ICE agents in Los Angeles, who often wore masks, drove in unmarked cars and chased down and snatched people from the streets without cause or warrants. In addition to Chicago, Trump has threatened to replicate the surges in Democratic-led Baltimore and New Orleans. On Friday, Trump signed an order changing the name of the Department of Defence to the Department of War, saying it sends “a message of victory” to the world. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth cheered the move, saying the US will decisively exact violence to reach its aims, without apology. – AFP by the end of this century.” When connected with national parks, the koala haven would create a 476,000ha reserve, the state government said. Unions said the koala reserve was far larger than the state government’s own experts had advised, and it would hit local communities hard. “This is not about being pro or anti koala,”said Tony Callinan, New South Wales secretary of the Australian Workers Union. “We all want to see koalas thrive. What we’re against is the unnecessary destruction of an entire industry and the communities it supports when there is a science-based option that achieves both conservation and a viable timber industry.” Final creation of the koala park will depend on the federal government agreeing to assess it as a carbon project for improved management of native forests, the state said. Australia’s official national koala monitoring programme estimates there are between 95,000 and 238,000 koalas in the eastern states of Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. Another 129,000 to 286,000 of the furry marsupials are estimated to be living in Victoria and South Australia. – AFP

o Trump escalates crackdown threats

The post featured an apparent AI image of Trump and the quote: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning” – both references to the 1979 Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now . In the film, the line is spoken by Lt-Col Bill Kilgore who says he loves the smell of “napalm” – not “deportations” – as the American military drops the highly flammable weapon on Vietnamese targets. The 79-year-old Republican has steadily ramped up threats against Chicago, since an early mention of it at the end of last month. Anti-Trump protesters took to the streets of Chicago on Saturday, carrying signs that read “Stop this fascist regime!” and “No Trump, no troops”. The protest route also went past Chicago’s Trump tower and protesters made angry gestures at the president’s building as they walked past. On Saturday in the US capital, where National Guard troops have been deployed since Trump declared a “crime emergency” in August, a thousands-strong protest march wound through downtown, with participants demanding an end to the “occupation”.

The New South Wales government imposed a ban effective from today on logging across 176,000ha of forest on the state’s north coast for a Great Koala National Park, hitting six timber mills and about 300 workers. Without action, it warned that koalas in Australia’s most populous state could die off by 2050. Environmentalists say koala numbers in New South Wales have suffered a dramatic decline in recent decades due to deforestation, drought and bushfires. “Koalas are at risk of extinction in the wild in NSW – that’s unthinkable. The Great Koala National Park is about turning that around,” said New South Wales Premier Chris Minns. “We’ve listened carefully and we’re making sure workers, businesses and communities are supported every step of the way.” State officials contacted each affected mill, the government said in a statement, vowing to provide payments to cover workers’ salaries and business costs while offering free access to training, financial, health and legal services. The state government first announced the WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump threatened on Saturday to unleash his newly rebranded “Department of War” on Chicago, further heightening tensions over his push to deploy troops into Democratic-led US cities. The move seeks to replicate an operation in the US capital Washington, where Trump deployed National Guard troops and boosted numbers of federal agents, sparking a backlash and a fresh protest on Saturday that drew thousands. “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” Trump posted on Saturday on his Truth Social account. The Democratic governor of Illinois, where Chicago is located, voiced outrage at Trump’s post. “The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal,” Governor JB Pritzker wrote in a post on X.

Australia halts logging for koala haven SYDNEY: Australia halted logging in a large stretch of woodland on the country’s eastern coast yesterday to create a retreat for koalas and save the local population from extinction. planned koala haven in 2023 but it only stopped logging in 8,400ha of forest. The plan was also criticised for not protecting trees immediately. The Great Koala National Park will provide a refuge to more than 12,000 koalas, 36,000 greater gliders – nocturnal marsupials with a membrane that lets them glide – and more than 100 other threatened species, officials said.

The government said it would invest A$6 million (RM16.6 million) to support new tourism and small business opportunities in the area. It also boosted funding to create the park by A$60 million in addition to A$80 million announced in 2023. The koala park was hailed by environmentalists but criticised by unions for its impact on logging industry workers. “Koala numbers in NSW crashed by more than half between 2000 and 2020 thanks to deforestation, drought, disease and devastating bushfires,” said WWF-Australia chief executive Dermot O’Gorman. “This park is a chance to turn this tragedy around and eventually lift koalas off the threatened species list by 2050,” he said. “These tall eucalypt forests are a refuge for koalas. Australia needs landscape-scale protected area networks like this to prepare for the possibility of 2.5 to three degrees of warming