Cops clear Silicon Valley tent camp

United States: About 50 muddy souls dragged their meagre belongings out of a rubbish-strewn California creek bed on Thursday as police and social-service workers began clearing away California’s largest homeless encampments.

The jungle, a bunch of flimsy shelters, lies in the shadow of Silicon Valley.

Dozens of police construction workers in hazmat suits joined social workers to demolish the community that has housed as many as 350 people living in squalor next door to billionaire neighbours including Google and Apple.

Thousands flee ahead of Hagupit

Philippines: Tens of thousands of people fled coastal villages and landslide-prone areas in the central Philippines on yesterday as Typhoon Hagupit bore down on eastern coasts of the island nation.

Ports were shut across the archipelago and the coastguard suspended sea travel. Hagupit was churning slowly across the Pacific yesterday, with winds reaching 130mph near its centre.

It is expected to slam into the central Philippines this afternoon.

100k without water after fire

Maldives: Water was cut off to more than 100,000 residents in the capital Male yesterday because of a fire in the city’s water treatment plant.

Minister Mohamed Shareef said the government had declared a crisis situation and India, Sri Lanka and the US had offered help.

The capital is located on a low-lying island in the Indian Ocean that has no natural water source and depends entirely on treated sea water.

Anti-nazi benefits Bill goes to Obama

United States: A Bill that will block nazi war criminals from receiving social security benefits headed to President Barack Obama for his signature yesterday.

The Senate gave final congressional approval by voice vote late on Thursday to a measure that would shut a loophole which had allowed suspected former nazis to be paid millions of dollars in benefits.

Social democrats in bed with right

Greenland: The leader of the island’s largest party said yesterday that he is forming a centre-right coalition government.

Kim Kielsen said his social-democratic Siumut party, the centrist Democrats and the conservative Atassut will have 17 of Parliament’s 31 seats.

Mr Kielsen, Greenland’s next premier, said Siumut could not agree with left-leaning Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) over uranium mining. Siumut finished barely ahead of IA in the November 28 elections.

Stolen marbles lent to Russian museum

Russia: The British Museum said yesterday that it would loan one of the Elgin Marbles to the Hermitage Museum in Russia.

The trustees said the marble sculpture of the river god Ilissos, a reclining male figure from the West Pediment of the Parthenon, will be part of a major exhibition marking the 250th anniversary of the Hermitage.

The headless sculpture is among those stolen from Greece more than two centuries ago by Scottish nobleman Lord Elgin.

Canberra says No to climate fund

Australia: Foreign Minister Julie Bishop insisted yesterday that Canberra wouldn’t donate to the UN fund to support climate change adaptation on vulnerable South Pacific islands but would only help directly if at all.

Ms Bishop claimed: “The Green Climate Fund is about supporting developing countries build resilience to climate change. Australia is already doing that through our aid programme.”

DNA Nobel prize medal sells for £3m

United States: A 1962 Nobel prize medal for the discovery of the structure of DNA has sold at auction for $4.7m (£3m) — a world record for any Nobel prize.

The gold medal won by James Watson was purchased on Thursday by a buyer who wished to remain anonymous.

His research partner Francis Crick’s medal sold last year for $2.2m (£1.4m). Prof Crick died in 2004.