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Switzerland holds ‘X Factor’ national anthem contest –
What does a country do if its national anthem is said to be so boring that no one can remember the words? The answer in Switzerland, it seems, is to hold a TV talent contest to find a better one. The country has just come to the end of a 20-month-long hunt for a new anthem that culminated in an X Factor style live television show over the weekend in which three finalists battled it out and viewers voted by text message. The winning entry was submitted, in French, German, Italian and Romansh, by Werner Widmer, a 62-year-old healthcare director from Zurich. The organisers say their next project is to convince the country to adopt Mr Widmar’s new version. [Daily Telegraph]

Australian prime minister Tony Abbott ousted by staunch republican Malcolm Turnbull –
Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has been ousted in a stunning coup by self-made millionaire Malcolm Turnbull, continuing the nation’s five-year run of leadership swaps. Winning a 54 to 44 Liberal party-room vote in Canberra on Monday, Mr Turnbull, 60, promised to unite the party and the nation with a new style of leadership that “respects the people’s intelligence”. The deputy Liberal leader, Julie Bishop, backed Mr Turnbull and easily won back her position in a 70 to 30 vote against cabinet minister Kevin Andrews. [BBC]
Malcolm Turnbull

Taylor Swift is being sued because she accused a radio host of touching her bottom –
Taylor Swift is being sued by a former Coloradoan radio DJ who claims that he lost his job because of claims the singer made about him allegedly grabbing her bottom. In June 2013, David Mueller, who is known on the radio as “Jackson”, went to a meet-and-greet with Taylor Swift, and brought along his girlfriend. Mueller and his girlfriend had their photo taken with Ms. Swift, and this is where things got ugly. Ms. Swift allegedly claimed that at this point he “lifted up her skirt and grabbed her bottom”. After this, he was escorted from the premises by security. Then, after a series of calls between Taylor Swift’s team and his radio station, he was fired. Mueller denies the claims that he touched her inappropriately. [Daily Telegraph]
Taylor Swift

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Armed conflicts and attacks

• Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen, Yemeni Civil War (2015)
  • Five Saudi troops are killed following clashes with Houthi militants in the southern Najran region near the border with Yemen. (AFP via Yahoo!)
  • Emirati troops advance on the Houthi controlled Yemeni capital, Sanaa after securing control of Marib, the capital of Marib province. (AP via Yahoo!)
  • Ten people are killed, seven from the same family, in a Saudi-led coalition airstrike on a government building in a southern suburb of Sana’a, the Yemen capital. (Reuters)
• War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
  • Taliban insurgents storm a prison in the central Afghan province of Ghazni killing at least four prison officers and freeing about 350 prisoners. The deputy provincial governor of the Ghazni province says the attackers were well-organised and wearing military uniforms. (BBC)
• Syrian Civil War, Russia’s role in the Syrian Civil War
  • The Pentagon says that Russia has deployed its domestic use only T-90 tanks and artillery pieces to Syria along with more troops in what one defense official described as the “first clear sign of offensive weapons arriving in Syria” and “the largest deployment of Russian forces outside the former Soviet Union since the collapse of the USSR“. (Fox News)

Business and economy

• Brazil announces a $17 billion austerity package after Standard and Poors further downgrades its credit rating. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• A University of Notre Dame study finds significant correlation between substantial executive stock options and future product recalls. CEOs with abundant stock options get a huge payoff when the company performs well but endure minute consequences when it doesn’t. (Fortune)

Disasters and accidents

• Kyushu island’s Mount Aso, Japan‘s largest active volcano, erupts. Numerous flights serving Kumamoto Airport are canceled. (Reuters via Trust), (CNN)
• 2015 Pacific typhoon season
  • Tropical Storm Vamco makes landfall south of Da Nang, Viet Nam, causing flooding in the region. (Accu Weather)
• At least seven people are dead and six missing after a flash flood in the American town of Hildale, Utah. (KUTV)

International relations

• Relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma
  • Takeshi Onaga, the governor of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, revokes approval for work on the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. (AFP via Straits Times)
• European migrant crisis
  • Germany reopens train services from Austria after reintroducing border controls. (Deutsche Welle)
  • Slovakia announces renewed border controls with Hungary. (AP via The New York Times)
• Colombia accuses Venezuela of violating its airspace for the second time in two days. (AFP via France 24)

Law and crime

• Shannon Lamb, a professor at Delta State University who was suspected of two murders in the U.S. state of Mississippi—the woman he was living with in Gautier and a fellow professor at the Delta State campus in Cleveland—dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound while being pursued by police. (Fox News)
• Miller v. Davis
  • In the U.S., Rowan County, Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, involved in the litigation over same-sex marriage, states she will not block her deputies from issuing marriage licenses, but will not authorize them personally (her name will not appear on them, and they will state that they were given under a federal judicial order). (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• Malcolm Turnbull launches a challenge for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Australia against incumbent Prime Minister Tony Abbott and wins 54–44. (ABC News Australia), (ABC News)
• Guatemalan general election, 2015
  • Manuel Baldizon drops out of the presidential race leaving Jimmy Morales and Sandra Torres in the runoff. (ABC Go)

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