The Solomon Islands Public Service Commission yesterday suspended the nation's newly appointed attorney general after it confirmed he was wanted on an Australian judicial arrest warrant on alleged child sex abuse offenses.
The decision by commission Chairman Edmund Andresen, reported by Solomon Islands Broadcasting, puts the organization overseeing the country's civil service clearly at odds with Prime Minister Mannaseh Sogavare, who is standing by his appointee as senior law officer and accuses Australia of a politically motivated witch hunt.
At the center of the storm is Julian Moti, an Australian citizen who was arrested on Sept. 29 at Australia's request in the Papua New Guinea capital, Port Moresby, as he returned from Singapore to the Solomons to take up the attorney-general's post.
Moti jumped bail and took refuge in the Solomons' diplomatic mission in Port Moresby, claiming diplomatic immunity.
The diplomatic row widened yesterday, as Papua New Guinea's leader supported Sogavare and indicated it may not hand over the wanted man despite a court order in Papua New Guinea seeking his arrest for failing to appear.
Australia wants to try Moti, an Australian citizen, for having sex with an underage girl in Vanuatu in 1997. Sogavare says charges against Moti for the assault were dismissed in Vanuatu, and Canberra is pursuing him as part of an agenda against his government. Under Australian anti-pedophile laws, citizens can be tried for crimes committed overseas.
Andresen said the commission decided yesterday to suspend Moti without pay after getting information about the Australian arrest warrant.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not