AUSTRALIA
Still life painter Olley dies
Painter Margaret Olley has died at the age of 88, the Art Gallery of New South Wales said yesterday. Best known for her colorful still life paintings, Olley, who was found dead at her Sydney home, was one of the nation’s most important and respected artists. “She was a painter — there was absolutely no other career for her,” gallery director Edmund Capon said, adding that her work was in the grand tradition of still life.
PHILIPPINES
Tropical storm kills seven
Seven people drowned and four are missing, while thousands fled their flooded homes as a tropical storm hit the nation, causing heavy rains and rough seas that disrupted aviation and shipping, officials said yesterday. Tropical storm Nock-ten also left two fishermen missing, while six others were rescued at sea as it approached the main island of Luzon, Civil Defense Administrator Benito Ramos said.
VIETNAM
Catholic priest jailed again
Authorities have sent an ailing Catholic priest and one of the country’s best-known democracy activists back to jail more than a year after his release on medical parole, an official said yesterday. The Reverend Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, 64, was escorted by police from his home at a church in Hue to Ba Sao prison outside Hanoi on Monday night, a prison official said on condition of anonymity, citing policy.
AUSTRALIA
Kangaroo attacks old lady
Police used pepper spray to overpower an aggressive kangaroo after it attacked a 94-year-old woman as she tended to the laundry in her backyard. Kangaroos rarely stray into urbanized areas, but police Sergeant Stephen Perkins said yesterday two officers were sent to assist the woman, who was attacked by a “Big Red” in the town of Charleville in southwest Queensland earlier this week. “Upon alighting from the car, the kangaroo approached one of the officers, the kangaroo was aggressive and the officer had to deploy his capsicum spray to subdue the animal,” Perkins told Reuters. The kangaroo initially retreated, but spotted the second police officer and bounded toward him, and was sprayed a second time.
NORTH KOREA
All voters vote: officials
All people who took part in local elections on Sunday voted for state--selected candidates and turnout was 99.97 percent, state media said yesterday. A total of 28,116 representatives were elected as deputies to assemblies at provincial, city and county level with not a single vote of opposition to the candidates, the Korean Central News Agency said. “Only those on foreign tours or working on the oceans could not take part in the election,” KCNA said. Typically, 99 percent of voters take part in elections and 99 percent of them vote for uncontested candidates.
CHINA
Pork dealers sentenced
A Henan Province court yesterday handed out long sentences, including a suspended death penalty, to five people involved in producing and selling pork tainted with a poisonous chemical, Xinhua news agency said. The pigs were fed clenbuterol to produce lean meat, which sells for a premium in China, the world’s largest producer and consumer of pork. Aside from the suspended death sentence, which in practice means a life sentence, the other suspects got sentences ranging from nine years in prison to life, Xinhua said.
GAZA STRIP
Israeli ‘collaborators’ killed
Hamas yesterday executed two men convicted of collaboration with Israel, the interior ministry said in a statement. It was the second time this year that the Islamist movement had carried out an execution of someone accused of “collaborating” with the Israelis. The statement did not say how the death sentence was carried out and it was not immediately clear when the two men were convicted. In May, a man referred to as A.S. was executed by firing squad after being convicted of collaboration a month earlier.
RUSSIA
Militant vows ‘blood, tears’
Moscow’s most wanted Islamist militant Doku Umarov said the country would be the target of a newly strengthened insurgency in a video posted on an Islamist affiliated Web site on Monday. Chechen-born Umarov, 47, claimed responsibility for masterminding the January suicide bombing of Moscow’s Domodedovo International Airport, which killed 37 people. He has also promised a year of “blood and tears” for Russia ahead of parliamentary elections in December and a presidential poll next year. In the 17-minute-long video Umarov, who styles himself the Emir of the Caucasus, says his insurgency has been strengthened by overcoming recent divisions that saw three high-level militants split from his Caucasus Emirate last year.
MEXICO
Bodies still unidentified
The bodies of 14 migrants massacred with 58 others on a ranch in the northern state of Tamaulipas in August last year have still not been identified, Mexico City’s rights ombudsman said on Monday. Authorities blamed the Zetas drug gang for the brutal killings of 72 migrants on a ranch in San Fernando where another 193 bodies were also found in hidden graves in April. Ombudsman Luis Gonzalez Placencia told a Mexico City news conference that 14 remaining unidentified bodies from the migrant massacre had now been moved to Toluca.
UNITED STATES
Avenger accepts plea
A man who killed one US soldier and wounded another — an act he called retribution for the deaths of Muslims abroad — took an unexpected plea deal on Monday that abruptly ended his murder trial and spared him the death penalty. Abdulhakim Muhammad has repeatedly said he drove to a Little Rock, Arkansas, recruiting station, drew an assault rifle and fired on the two uniformed soldiers. On Monday, Muhammad stood before a judge and once more admitted to the shooting. Judge Herbert Wright then sentenced Muhammad to life in prison without parole for capital murder, with 11 more life sentences on the remaining charges and an additional 180 years in prison.
SAUDI ARABIA
Amnesty says site blocked
Amnesty International said Saudi authorities on Monday blocked the group’s Web site inside the kingdom following criticism of a controversial new anti-terrorism draft law. The London-based group said the bill, which was reviewed by a Saudi government committee last month and has yet to be passed, allows authorities to prosecute peaceful dissent as a terrorist crime. Amnesty on Friday posted on its Web site the full Arabic text of the anti-terrorism draft law along with an internal review of the law by a Saudi security committee. Hours after the Web site was blocked on Monday, Amnesty moved the text of the bill to another Amnesty-administered Web site, which could be accessed by residents in the kingdom.
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