INDIA
Minister’s body found
The body of Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu has been recovered from the wreckage of a helicopter that crashed in a densely forested area in the Himalayan foothills. Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said yesterday the body had been taken to the state capital, Itanagar. The single-engine helicopter carrying Khandu and four others lost radio contact and crashed on Saturday about 20 minutes after taking off from the Buddhist mountain retreat of Tawang. The bodies were retrieved on Wednesday after a five-day search. A state funeral for Khandu will be held today.
VIETNAM
Hmong protest crushed
Troops forcibly dispersed ethnic Hmong protesters after thousands mounted a rare demonstration in northwestern Dien Bien Province calling for autonomy, a military source said yesterday. The Hmong, who began demonstrating several days ago, were also demanding greater freedom of religion, said the source, who asked for anonymity. The troops “had to disperse the crowd by force,” the source said, without saying if anyone was injured.
AUSTRALIA
World War I veteran dies
Briton Claude Choules, the last World War I combat veteran, has died aged 110, ending the living connection with a conflict that saw 70 million military personnel mobilized. Blind and almost totally deaf, Choules died in his sleep at his hostel home in Perth overnight. The only other surviving veteran of The Great War is said to be Britain’s Florence Green, who served with the Royal Air Force in a non-combat role as a mess waitress and is now aged 110. Born in Worcestershire, England, Choules served with the Royal Navy on board the HMS Impregnable in 1916 at the age of 15 and witnessed the surrender of the German Imperial Navy in 1918. After the war, he moved to Australia and was seconded to the Royal Australian Navy in 1926. Choules remained with the navy after the war but spent his final working years in the crayfishing industry at Safety Bay, near Perth. Married for 80 years to Ethel, a Scottish children’s nurse who lived to 98, he had two daughters, a son, 13 grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.
MALAYSIA
Visitors being fingerprinted
The government has begun taking fingerprints from foreigners entering the country in a bid to prevent illegal immigrants coming in using fake papers, immigration spokesman Abdul Haidir Mohamad Sukor said yesterday. A pilot system, implemented at several entry points since late last month, requires visitors to give prints of both index fingers, Abdul Haidir said. He said the biometric system was expected to be implemented nationwide from June 1. “Before this in Malaysia, the overstayers are just sent back but they can come back with fake passports. With the biometric system, they cannot lie,” he said.
FRANCE
Crash body recovered
An undersea recovery team has recovered the first body from the wreck of an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 with the loss of all 228 on board, police said yesterday. The remains of some passengers were found in the ocean after the crash, but it is thought that some of the missing could be in the wreckage 4,000m below the surface. The search crew used an underwater robot to recover the body.
Agencies
EGYPT
Chief coroner sacked
The nation’s chief coroner was sacked on Wednesday and activists applauded the move, saying he had forged autopsy results to hide torture and state security abuses. The justice minister sacked coroner Ahmed Sabiey after he was investigated for having given unauthorized interviews on the health of former president Hosni Mubarak, judicial sources said. Internet social networking sites had carried statements from dozens of groups calling for Sabiey to step down. He was blamed for having covered up details of the death of 28-year-old Khaled Said in June. The death sparked public protests and was a catalyst in galvanizing anger that toppled Mubarak on Feb. 11.
SPAIN
Prehistoric paintings found
Paintings depicting horses and human hands made by prehistoric humans around 25,000 years ago have been discovered in a cave in the north, regional officials said on Wednesday. The red paintings, found by archeologists looking for signs of ancient settlements, were made around the same time as the Altamira Cave paintings — some of the world’s best prehistoric paintings discovered in the northern part of the country in 1879.
ITALY
Jilted groom sues bride
A groom left hanging at the altar after his runaway bride changed her mind at the last minute because she was in love with another man is now suing her for 500,000 euros (US$743,000). The 32-year-old said he had suffered emotional and material damages after booking a villa for the wedding outside Rome, reserving a honeymoon on a Pacific island and refurbishing an apartment to his fiancee’s tastes. Wednesday’s report by Italy’s ANSA news agency said the man, referred to only by his first name, Riccardo, was already in the church when his fiancee’s brother told him she would not be coming and the priest canceled the service. The report said the lawsuit emphasized the groom and his family had borne all the costs for the wedding.
GERMANY
Man rescued from prison
A mayor helped rescue a man who became trapped in a women’s prison after mistaking it for a shortcut to a nearby park, police in the northern city of Hildesheim said on Wednesday. Hilde-sheim Mayor Henning Blum heard the man’s cries for help while passing by the prison near the city center and notified police who came and freed the 24-year-old. The man told police he was strolling through town and did not immediately notice he had walked into a prison. By the time it dawned on him where he was, the gate to the jail had already closed, locking him inside. Police said they are investigating why the prison gate was open.
UNITED KINGDOM
Chinese lecturer killed
Police pursued a nationwide manhunt on Wednesday for a herbal medicine businessman suspected of killing a Chinese university lecturer and his family over a court dispute. Detectives are hunting 52-year-old Du Anxiang (杜安祥) over the killing of lecturer Ding Jifeng (丁繼峰), 46, his wife, Ge Chui, 47, and their daughters Xing, 18, and Alice, 12, who were knifed to death at their home in Northampton. Their bodies were found on Sunday, but it is not clear when they died. Du lost a bitter court battle over their shared business interests on Thursday and the next day, Du traveled to their suburb, police said, adding that the businessman felt he was owed tens of thousands of dollars by Ding’s wife.
PERU
Government critic killed
A reporter who openly criticized regional government officials was killed in a hail of gunfire, a media watchdog group said on Wednesday. Julio Castillo Narvaez, who headed the newscast at Radio Ollantay in the northern city of Viru, was a fierce critic of regional authorities, the Lima-based Press and Society Institute (IPYS) said. On Tuesday a group of gunmen accosted Castillo, 41, as he was leaving a Viru restaurant after lunch and shot him six times, then fled the scene. Police say the hitmen were likely hired guns.
UNITED STATES
Jackie Cooper dies at 88
Jackie Cooper, who was nominated for an Oscar at the age of nine and played the editor of the Daily Planet in the Superman films, has died at 88, officials said. Flowers were placed on his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame following his death after a sudden illness, said the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which manages the stars on the storied stretch of sidewalk. Born in LA in 1922, Cooper was only nine when he played the lead in the 1931 movie Skippy, and became the youngest ever actor nominated for a leading role Oscar.
CANADA
Beaver dam stops oil spill
An oil spill near the native village of Little Buffalo in Alberta Province was partly contained by a beaver dam, a provincial environment official said on Wednesday. Oil began leaking on April 29 from a pipeline belonging to Plains Midstream Canada about 7km from the village, Alberta Environment said. In the end, it spilled 28,000 barrels. The oil almost sullied a river, but was contained by some small bodies of standing water and a beaver dam, officials said.
UNITED STATES
Suicide abettor sentenced
A former nurse who helped persuade two people he met online to kill themselves was sentenced on Wednesday to nearly a year in jail, a punishment tailored to force him to return to jail each year for a decade to spend the anniversaries of his victims’ deaths behind bars. William Melchert-Dinkel was convicted of two counts of aiding suicide under a rarely used Minnesota law. Prosecutors said he posed online as a suicidal nurse and encouraged a Canadian woman and a British man to commit suicide.
MEXICO
Vigil for miners held
Stunned and saddened relatives held a vigil on Wednesday outside a mine in the northwestern state of Coahuila, where nine workers were trapped and possibly dead following an explosion that killed at least five of their colleagues. Rescuers used picks, shovels and their hands to tunnel through dirt, wood, metal and rock in a frantic effort to reach the miners trapped 60m underground. “We want their bodies, regardless of their condition,” said Silvia Martinez, whose nephew is missing. Labor Secretary Javier Lozano calmed the group and promised he would give them an update on the rescue every hour.
UNITED STATES
No Iran trial for me: hiker
A woman released from prison in Iran said she would not be going back to stand trial there alongside two fellow hikers charged with spying for the US. Sarah Shourd said she suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome and returning to Iran would be “far too traumatic” after all she has been through. Her friends, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, are still held in Tehran and scheduled for a second session of their trial on Wednesday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing