NEW ZEALAND
Stranded whales get free
Sixty-six survivors of a pod of 80 pilot whales that were stranded on a beach freed themselves and swam back to sea during a high tide, rescuers said yesterday. The whales came ashore at Golden Bay north of the city of Nelson at the tip of South Island on Friday afternoon. About 100 rescuers had been unable to refloat the whales before darkness fell on Friday night. When they returned to the site of the stranding yesterday morning, they found the whales had gone, Conservation Department spokeswoman Trish Grant said. It appeared a high tide around midnight had allowed the stranded whales to free themselves.
RUSSIA
Moscow backs Seoul’s call
Moscow said on Friday that it backed South Korea’s earlier call for the UN Security Council to debate North Korea’s uranium enrichment program. The foreign ministry said in a statement that North Korea’s reported enrichment capacities would violate existing Security Council resolutions and require further international inquiry. Moscow also renewed its call for the “urgent” resumption of the six-party talks format that also include the US, China and Japan. The talks should lead to “reliable political and legal safeguards [for] Northeast Asia” and the “normalization of state-to-state relations,” it said.
SPAIN
Japanese scientist honored
Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka was honored on Friday with a Spanish award worth 400,000 euros (US$544,000) for his pioneering work on cell reprogramming. Yamanaka won the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biomedicine, the foundation said. The former orthopedic surgeon made his breakthrough discovery in 2006, when he succeeded in generating “induced pluripotent stem cells,” or those capable of growing into other tissues in the body. Until Yamanaka proved differently, scientists believed that this could only be achieved with stem cells harvested from embryos, the foundation said in a statement.
UNITED STATES
Pet boa constrictor found
Transit officials said a 1m long boa constrictor that slithered away from its owner on a Boston subway car a month ago was found on an adjoining car on Thursday. A commuter spotted Penelope the snake and alerted a train attendant at a Red Line station. Transit authority officials took the train out of service to search it. Finally at 8:30pm, train attendant Sharon Lynch caught the snake. Penelope’s owner, Melissa Moorhouse of Allston, had traveled around with the snake around her neck and lost it between two stations on Jan. 6.
UNITED KINGDOM
BBC sorry over Mexico slur
The BBC on Friday apologized to Mexican Ambassador Eduardo-Mora Icaza over comments referring to Mexicans as “lazy, feckless” and “flatulent,” but defended the Top Gear motoring show presenters who made them. Icaza said the “outrageous, vulgar and inexcusable insults” on the BBC show on Sunday reinforced “negative stereotypes.” The BBC said it had written to Icaza apologizing if the program caused offense. However, it added in a statement that the comments may have been “rude” and “mischievous,” but not vindictive. “Our own comedians make jokes about the British being terrible cooks and terrible romantics, and we in turn make jokes about the Italians being disorganized and overdramatic, the French arrogant and the Germans overorganized,” the BBC said.
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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