[World Affairs Overview]

Power slowly returns as US heatwave drags on

US: Utility crews made slow progress Monday in restoring electricity to millions of households amid a record-setting heatwave in the eastern United States that showed no sign of abating soon.

Temperatures shot back into the 100-degree Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) range in many areas Sunday, prompting the National Weather Service to warn of the prospect of severe thunderstorms including large hail and damaging winds.

“Cities from St. Louis, Missouri, to Washington DC are forecast to approach or break daily record high temperatures for yet another day and there may be more all-time records broken,” said AccuWeather, a private weather service.

AFP

Pufferfish a hit in Japan, despite the risks

JAPAN: Every year in Japan people are hospitalised after eating pufferfish; sometimes the result is fatal. But despite apparent dangers, strict rules on serving the toxic delicacy in Tokyo are to be relaxed.

Aficionados say the tingle that the meat of the pufferfish leaves on your lips -- caused by the potent neurotoxin it contains -- is part of the appeal.

Never mind that the numbness tetrodotoxin creates can progress to paralysis and breathing problems.

Or that, according to the US Food and Drug Administration, consumption can prove fatal within four to six hours and “the victim, although completely paralysed, may be conscious and in some cases completely lucid until shortly before death”.

AFP

Cool reception for Australia’s climate tax

AUSTRALIA: Australia's new carbon tax received a cool reception in a poll Monday, showing Prime Minister Julia Gillard's mechanism to tackle climate change is unpopular and her government on track to lose office.

Only 33 percent support the measure introduced Sunday, according to the Nielsen survey published in the Sydney Morning Herald, with 62 percent of the 1,400 voters polled opposing it.

The centre-left Labor government has launched a drive to sell the carbon tax, which imposes a levy of Aus$23 (US$23.50) per tonne of carbon emissions on about 350 of the country's top polluters.

Gillard's party was well behind the conservative opposition led by Tony Abbott, with percentage support split 42-58 between them once minor parties' shares were stripped out.

Australia, one of the world's highest carbon emitters per capita, has long debated taxing such pollution, but the issue remains hugely divisive and has sparked large protests.

AFP

‘Bogus cop’ kills three NATO personnel

AFGHANISTAN: A man in an Afghan police uniform has gunned down three NATO personnel in the war-torn country’s troubled south, the coalition said on Sunday, the latest so-called “green on blue” attack.

The deaths take the toll this year in “green-on-blue” killings -- in which Afghan forces turn their weapons against their Western allies -- to at least 26, in a total of 18 such incidents.

In keeping with its usual policy, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) gave few details of the incident and did not reveal the nationality of the victims.

“An individual wearing an Afghan National Civil Order Police uniform turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force service members in southern Afghanistan today, killing three service members,” ISAF said in a statement.

An ISAF spokesman said the gunman was wounded and detained after the attack, which happened around 5:00 pm (1230 GMT), and is now under investigation. The incident is not thought to have happened on an ISAF base, the spokesman said.

AFP