■SRI LANKA
Tamils seek autonomy
PHOTO: REUTERS/MARY ROSE TRUST
The main Tamil party on Saturday vowed to launch a Gandhi-style civil disobedience campaign to press a long-standing demand for regional autonomy for their ethnic minority. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in its manifesto for next month’s parliamentary elections renewed its demand for extensive regional autonomy — after Tamil Tiger rebels who fought in their name were crushed last year. “If the state continues its present style of governance without due regard to the rights of the Tamil-speaking peoples, the TNA will launch a peaceful, non-violent campaign of civil disobedience on the Gandhian model,” the party said. The alliance said it would lobby India and the international community to ensure the island’s Tamil community — 12.5 percent of the population — gets a greater say in the administration. The TNA has repeatedly distanced itself from hardliners who demanded outright independence.
■AUSTRALIA
Slain tot’s parents leave
The parents of a three-year-old Indian boy whose body was found dumped by the side of the road have left the country after an emotional memorial service in Melbourne, reports said yesterday. Gurshan Singh’s lifeless body was found near Melbourne airport on March 4. The cause of death has not been revealed but an Indian man who lived with the child’s family has been charged with manslaughter by criminal negligence. At the service on Saturday, his mother Harpreet Kaur Channa choked back tears as she spoke. “We came to Australia for a better family life with our lovely young bubbly son Gurshan, but destiny had something else in mind and now we are going back without Gurshan’s smile.”
■KAZAKHSTAN
Nuclear manager sentenced
The lawyer for a former head of the state nuclear energy company says his client has been sentenced to 14 years in jail on charges of embezzlement and corruption. Lawyer Nurlan Bisekeyev said Mukhtar Dzhakishev was sentenced on Friday by a court in the capital, Astana. The verdict is likely to unnerve foreign investors, who view Dzhakishev as a modernizing Western-style manager.
■JAPAN
Strong quake rocks center
A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit off the eastern coast yesterday, rattling buildings across the country, including Tokyo. There were no reports of casualties, with only light damage to structures near the epicenter, local officials said. The quake hit at 5:08pm and was felt most strongly in Fukushima Prefecture, 210km northeast of Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Hatch a hit at Crufts
A 16th century dog, the only known female to have served aboard King Henry VIII’s ill-fated flagship the Mary Rose, has stolen the show at Britain’s Crufts dog show this year. The two-year old mongrel, lost aboard the Tudor warship 465 years ago, is a special guest of the Kennel Club this year, the show’s organizers said. The painstakingly reconstructed skeleton, poised on its haunches, acquired the nickname “Hatch” after divers discovered her remains near the sliding hatch door of the Mary Rose’s carpenter’s cabin. Her remains were found partly inside and outside his quarters suggesting she was trapped there as the huge warship keeled over and sank in the Solent in mysterious circumstances.
■GEORGIA
Fake news sparks real panic
A TV channel sparked a brief panic in Georgia on Saturday when it produced a fake newscast reporting that a Russian invasion was underway. The privately owned Imedi TV showed footage from the August 2008 war with Russia, reported that Russian tanks were headed for Tbilisi and that Russian aircraft had bombed airports and ports. After the bulletin, the channel announced that it had been false and aimed at exploring possible future events. The Interpress news agency quoted emergency services as saying the report caused multiple incidents of heart attacks and fainting. It said hundreds of residents of Gori, the city worst hit by the 2008 war, fled their homes and rushed to local shops for emergency supplies. Mobile phone networks were also briefly overloaded and ceased functioning as word of the report spread.
■EGYPT
Sarcophagus comes home
A 3,000-year-old wooden sarcophagus confiscated at Miami airport after being shipped from Barcelona has been returned to Cairo. The brightly painted sarcophagus dates back to the 21st Dynasty, which lasted from 1070BC to 945BC. Customs officials at Miami airport seized the coffin in October 2008 from a shipment from Spain after the importer could not present documentation to prove ownership.
■POLAND
Camp memorials defaced
Vandals sprayed anti-Semitic graffiti on Holocaust memorials at the former Plaszow Nazi concentration camp near Krakow, desecration that authorities discovered on Saturday and are investigating. Words including Jude Raus —German for “Jew Out” — and “Hitler Good!” in English, were found in red paint on a large monument at the camp. A smaller memorial plaque was also defaced with a swastika and graffiti.
■SOMALIA
Clan fighting kills 11
Fighting between two clans over land and water killed at least 11 people and wounded several others on Saturday, a rights group said. The two clans have been fighting in recent weeks in Mudug and the latest clash was about 110km northeast of Dhusamareb, the provincial capital of Galgadud. “At least 11 people died in clan clashes today. The two clans fought inhumanely using knives and guns,” said Ali Yasin Gedi, vice chairman of Elman peace and human rights group.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Dorset residents panic
Panicked residents of a southern village barricaded themselves inside their homes and prepared for disaster after mistaking a training exercise for a nuclear accident. Emergency services were inundated with 999 calls — the equivalent of 911 — as inhabitants of Portland, in Dorset, worried they were under attack, or that a nuclear submarine in a nearby port had malfunctioned. Dorset County Council said yesterday the incident happened on Wednesday, as local officials rehearsed their emergency plan — which included delivering emergency leaflets to local homes.
■UNITED STATES
Ex-astronauts disappointed
Two former astronauts have said they are disappointed with the government’s decision to cancel NASA’s moon landing program. Jim Lovell, who led the Apollo 13 mission in 1970, told the BBC the cancellation could be disastrous. “Personally, I think it will have catastrophic consequences in our ability to explore space and the spin-offs we get from space technology,” Lovell said. “They haven’t thought through the consequences.” Eugene Cernan, part of the 1972 Apollo 17 mission, said the government has a responsibility to lead the world in space exploration and technology and that he hopes people will be back on the moon sooner than later. “I’m quite disappointed that I’m still the last man on the moon,” he said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Cameron ‘irritating, messy’
The wife of the leader of the main opposition said he was irritating and messy, but ready to oust Prime Minister Gordon Brown in a looming national election. Samantha Cameron, a distant descendant of King Charles II, used her first major interview to praise husband David Cameron’s kindness and passion for politics. In an interview being broadcast today, the 38-year-old offers an insight into Cameron’s domestic life — chastising his messy habits and TV channel surfing. She said Cameron, whose Conservative Party leads Brown’s Labour in opinion polls, was a huge fan of Westerns and The Godfather movie trilogy.
■UNITED STATES
Edwards’ aide avoids jail
A former aide to John Edwards avoided jail again on Friday in a dispute over a tape that allegedly shows the past presidential candidate and his lover in a sexual encounter. Superior Court Judge Abraham Penn Jones ruled that Andrew Young was not in contempt of court for his accounting of how he handled items that Edwards mistress Rielle Hunter is seeking. The North Carolina judge had threatened to jail Young earlier this week and said he was troubled by a series of conflicting statements that Young has made under oath. Jones said he wasn’t sure if Young and his wife had purposely disobeyed his orders. “You know and God knows, but I don’t know,” he said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Porn director runs for office
A woman who has directed 300 “female-friendly” sex films is to test the liberal-mindedness of voters and run for parliament in an election to be held within weeks. Anna Arrowsmith, 38, whose works under the name Anna Span include Be My Toy Boy, Hoxton Honey and Uniform Behaviour, is standing for the opposition Liberal Democrats in the Kent constituency of Gravesham. Her last-minute selection for the seat after the previous candidate dropped out made headlines across the country over the weekend as the opposition party met in Birmingham ahead of the election expected in May.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese