Briefly

AUSTRALIA

10,000 camels may be culled due to drought

Snipers took to helicopters in Australia on Wednesday to begin a five-day mass cull of up to 10,000 camels as a drought drives big herds of the feral animals to search for water closer to remote towns, endangering indigenous communities. Local officials in South Australia state said "extremely large" herds have been encroaching on rural communities－threatening scarce food and drinking water, damaging infrastructure, and creating a dangerous hazard for drivers. It comes after Australia experienced its hottest and driest year in 2019.

DR CONGO

Measles claims 6,000 lives over past year

More than 6,000 people have died since the start of 2019 as a result of the "world's worst measles epidemic" raging across the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a statement from the World Health Organization on Tuesday. A lack of funding, according to the WHO, remains a major obstacle in the control of the epidemic. Only $27.6 million has been raised, but around 310,000 suspected cases of measles have been reported since the outbreak of the disease, said the statement. "Thousands of Congolese families need our support to ease the burden of this protracted epidemic. We cannot do it without sufficient finances," said Amedee Prosper Djiguimde from the WHO office in the country, calling for more fundraising to stop the epidemic.

INDIA

Gang-rape murderers given hanging date

Four men sentenced to death for the gang rape and murder of a woman on a New Delhi bus in an attack that sent shockwaves across the world will be hanged on Jan 22, an Indian court ruled on Tuesday. The men were convicted in 2013 of the rape, torture and murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy student in a case that triggered large protests in India. The attack prompted India to enact tougher laws against sexual violence, including the death penalty for rape in some cases, but implementation has been poor and the attacks have shown no signs of letup. In 2017, India's Supreme Court had upheld death sentences against the four men. In the past two years, the top court has dismissed review pleas filed by the convicts, paving the way for their execution.

FRANCE

Child found dead in plane's landing gear

A child was found dead in the landing gear of an Air France plane coming from Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, on Wednesday morning at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, reported local media. The plane, a Boeing 777, took off from Abidjan on Tuesday evening and landed shortly after 6 am in Paris. The body of a child "about 10 years old" was found, reported BFM TV. Air France said in a tweet that a corpse of a "clandestine passenger" was found on the landing gear of Flight AF703. Air transport police at the airport have started an investigation.

UNITED STATES

Gorilla undergoes cataract surgery

A team of eye doctors in California tested their skills on an unusual patient－a western lowland gorilla. Working with veterinarians from the San Diego Zoo, an eye surgeon removed a cataract from the left eye of a three-year-old female named Leslie on December 10, zoo officials announced. They said the surgery was performed at the zoo's medical center and Leslie was recovering well. The surgeon who performed the procedure, Chris Heichel, said that while he had carried out thousands of eye surgeries on human patients, this was his first on a gorilla.