■ PHILIPPINES
Activists rescue tiny shark
Activists have rescued what they believe might be the smallest offspring of the world’s biggest fish — a whale shark the size of a forearm, a conservation group said yesterday. The World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature said maritime officials and activists in Pilar town rescued the 38cm-long whale shark last week and released it in deep waters. Its tail was tied to a small rope on a beach. The group called it “arguably the smallest living whale shark in recorded history.” The WWF said the discovery was the first ever indication that this coastline may be their birthing ground. The gentle creatures, which can grow to be as big as a bus, make regular stops along the country’s eastern shores from December to May, attracting thousands of tourists. But little is known about where they breed as they cruise the world seas.
■ MALAYSIA
Illegal meat seized
Authorities have seized the butchered remains of dozens of civet cats, long-tailed monkeys and wild boar destined to be sold to neighboring countries, an official said yesterday. The Department of Wildlife and National Parks said it seized a total of 7,000kg of exotic meat in a raid near the Thai border on Monday. The haul netted 54 civet cats and 10 long-tailed monkeys — both classified as threatened species and protected by law — and 27 wild boar heads, enforcement official Celescoriano Razond told reporters. “They were seized from the house of a 50-year-old man who was found to be in illegal possession of these meats, which were worth between 50,000 and 80,000 ringgit [US$13,450 and US$21,520],” he said.
■ INDONESIA
Australians released
Five Australians jailed for illegally entering Papua Province by plane have been released after winning their appeal, their lawyer said yesterday. They were to fly the plane home as soon as yesterday after the high court ruled that they had received verbal permission to land from the control tower in Papua’s Merauke district on Sept. 12, their lawyer said. A lower court in January jailed them for up to three years. They had flown from Horn island off northeastern Australia on what they described as a sightseeing trip. “They have all been freed since the high court accepted their appeal on March 5,” lawyer Efrem Fangoihoy said. The court had yet to make its ruling public but the lawyer said he was expecting formal notification later yesterday.
■ NEPAL
Peace threatened: envoys
Western diplomats expressed concern over cracks in the peace process that ended the country’s bloody 10-year communist insurgency, the British embassy said in a statement. Officials from the embassies of Britain, France and the US met Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Sunday, the statement said. The diplomats said in the letter that there were “negative developments” in the process, including new recruitment campaigns by both the government army and the former rebel Maoists that the envoys said were “clear breaches of the spirit of the peace agreements.” The former rebels are protesting the recruitment of 2,800 new soldiers into the national army last year, saying it was against the peace process.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
France honors WWI survivor
The last British survivor of the trench warfare of World War I’s Western Front has been made an officer of the French Legion of Honor. French Ambassador Maurice Gourdault-Montagne gave 110-year-old veteran Harry Patch the medal on Monday. Patch was already a Knight of the French Legion of Honor. He received that award in 1998 along with more than 300 other World War I veterans. Patch fought as a machine-gunner in the 1917 Battle of Passchendaele, where he was wounded. The ceremony took place at Patch’s nursing home in Wells, west of London.
RSS