■INDONESIA
Journalists flout film ban
Journalists yesterday vowed to defy a ban on the screening of Australian movie Balibo, saying the film depicting alleged war crimes by Indonesian forces in East Timor is educational. The film directed by Robert Connolly and starring Anthony LaPaglia was banned without explanation on Tuesday hours before it was due to premier in the country at a private showing for the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club. It depicts the alleged murder of five Australian-based journalists by invading Indonesian forces in the East Timorese border town of Balibo in 1975. Indonesia claims the reporters — two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander — were killed in crossfire and has refused to cooperate with an Australian war crimes investigation launched this year. Alliance of Independent Journalists head Nezar Patria said its members had been invited to a screening last night at Utan Kayu Theatre in Jakarta, regardless of the ban. The film, which opened in Australia in July, was also scratched at the last minute from the program for the Jakarta International Film Festival starting next week.
■VIETNAM
Mass grave found
Authorities in central Vietnam have found a mass grave containing the remains of 25 communist soldiers killed during the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Trong Luyen says the remains were recovered on Wednesday along with personal effects like sandals, belts, caps and hammocks. Construction workers discovered the remains while digging a drainage system in Quang Ngai city. The remains are believed to be those of communist commandos killed while attacking a South Vietnamese prison during the Tet Offensive in 1968.
■UNITED NATIONS
Disabled key to poverty work
The UN warned Wednesday that attempts to halve world poverty will be doomed unless the world’s estimated 650 million disabled people are pulled out of neglect and unjust discrimination. In an appeal to mark International Day for Persons with Disabilities yesterday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said disabled people formed “one of the world’s largest and most neglected groups.” About 20 percent of the world’s poorest people have some kind of disability, while 90 percent of disabled children in developing countries do not attend school, UN data showed. “These statistics shock our conscience,” Pillay said. “Unless persons with disabilities are brought into the development mainstream, it will be impossible to cut poverty in half by 2015,” she said.
■INDONESIA
Jet passengers injured
At least six passengers were injured yesterday when they jumped off a jet as it prepared to take off from Bali, falsely believing the plane was on fire, an airline official said. The Batavia Air Boeing 737 carrying 148 passengers and six crew was about to leave the terminal at the island’s main airport, en route to Surabaya city in East Java, when the incident happened at 11:45am. “Some passengers saw smoke coming out from the plane’s right side. They screamed and shouted that the plane was on fire,” airline spokesman Eddy Haryanto said. “That caused other passengers to panic and rush to the emergency exit. They forced open the door and jumped off the plane,” he said. Six injured passengers were sent to hospital, the spokesman said, adding their condition was unknown. “There was no fire, it was only smoke from the exhaust and that’s normal as the pilot had just started up the engines,” Haryanto said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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