Taiwan is watching Hong Kong

October 24, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

Was Beijing's “one country, two systems” formula a hollow promise?

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The mother of the gunman who carried out the deadly attack on Canada's seat of government said Thursday that she is crying for the victims of the shooting rampage, not her son. In a brief and tear-filled telephone interview with The Associated Press, Susan Bibeau said she did not know what to say to those hurt in what authorities are calling a terrorist attack by a recent convert to Islam. "Can you ever explain something like this?" she said. "We are sorry."In a separate email to the AP expressing horror and sadness at what happened, Bideau said that her son seemed lost and "did not fit in," and that she hadn't seen him for more than five years before they spoke over lunch last week.

The 23-year-old Maryland man who climbed over the White House fence was ordered held without bond in an appearance Thursday before a federal magistrate judge. Wearing blue prison garb, Dominic Adesanya resisted being taken away and started talking as two deputy marshals removed him from the courtroom. The defendant has been charged with felonies for assaulting two police dogs and making threats. A preliminary hearing and detention hearing have been scheduled for Monday.

Ukraine's prime minister warned on Thursday of possible attempts by Russia to disrupt an election in Ukraine this weekend, a vote being held against a background of Russian support for separatist rebels and an unresolved row over gas. Sunday's poll is the first parliamentary election since street protests last winter drove Moscow-backed leader Victor Yanukovich from office and ushered in a pro-Western leadership. The results are expected to turn a political bloc supporting President Petro Poroshenko into the leading force in parliament, where pro-Russian influence will be greatly diminished.

Hurricane Gonzalo caused between $200 million and $400 million in insured losses over the weekend on Bermuda, according to an estimate by AIR Worldwide, a Boston-based catastrophe modeling company. The large eye of the storm containing calm air passed directly over the tiny island chain of 65,000 inhabitants on Friday, reducing the time the British territory was exposed to hurricane-force winds and limiting potential damage, AIR said in its estimate, which was released late Wednesday.

Big profits from rising SUV and truck sales in North America helped General Motors nearly double its third-quarter net profit and more than offset its struggles in Europe and South America. The automaker posted net income of $1.38 billion, or 81 cents per share. In the year-ago quarter, GM made $698 million, or 45 cents per share. The July-September quarter was the first this year without significant charges for recalls. GM has issued 75 recalls in 2014 covering more than 30 million vehicles, costing the company more than $2.8 billion.

China may ban Facebook, but not its co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who delighted an audience of students in Beijing with a 30-minute chat in his recently learned Mandarin Chinese. There was no explicit discussion of China's ban on the social media site, which has been in place since 2009, though an indirect reference to it drew laughter during the question-and-answer session Wednesday at the prestigious Tsinghua University. Both Zuckerberg and the university posted video clips of the Q&A online.

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

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