NIGER
Experts inspect eruptions
Local authorities and France’s Areva group have sent experts to investigate eruptions, smoke and fumes spouting from a mountain in the northern uranium mining district of Arlit, state media said on Thursday. Earlier this week, residents reported two days of activity. Geologists and chemists dispatched on Tuesday to take samples found cracks in the mountainside and rocks 400m away. There were no reports of injuries or damage to mines. “According to the witnesses who alerted the authorities, when they heard explosions, they initially thought it was an earthquake or a volcanic eruption,” state radio said in a report. “The mountain rumbled, giving the impression that it was collapsing. Black smoke rose and there was a smell of gas, as it was coming from fuel,” the report added. There were no further details immediately available.
SOUTH AFRICA
Alleged bomber charged
Prosecutors said a Nigerian suspect would be tried at the High Court in January for terrorism and attempting to harm Nigeria’s president in deadly car bombings last year. Henry Okah was arrested after the deadly Oct. 1 bombings in the Nigerian capital that killed 12 people during independence celebrations. Prosecution spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga said Okah was presented on Wednesday with a five-count indictment charging he orchestrated the attacks from exile in South Africa. The 46-year-old Okah has denied involvement in the attacks. The explosions were claimed by a militant group in Nigeria’s oil-rich delta region that Okah said he sympathizes with but does not lead.
GREECE
Firefighting aid sought
Firefighters were battling at least seven large wildfires early yesterday from the Turkish border to the outskirts of Athens. The government had asked its European partners for water-dropping planes, and Spain and France responded by offering two planes each that are expected to arrive later yesterday. Portugal and Italy were also expected to contribute. The civilian protection authority said it was forced to seek help due to the large number of forest blazes across the country — about 90 broke out over the previous 24 hours — and the high risk of fire over the next few days when high winds will be scouring a countryside desiccated by months of summer heat. A state of emergency was declared in two areas in the northeast and west.
UNITED KINGDOM
Police brace for carnival
Police will be on high alert at the Notting Hill Carnival in London this weekend amid fears that Europe’s biggest street festival could be marred by a repeat of this month’s devastating riots. The annual extravaganza attracts a million spectators to see floats with powerful sound systems packed with outlandishly dressed dancers make their way through west London. The festivities tomorrow and Monday’s highpoint almost did not take place at all this year in the wake of riots that erupted in the capital and spread across England, leaving five people dead. However, the organizers were not ready to admit defeat in the face of an outbreak of civil disobedience, especially because the carnival itself originated as an act of defiant celebration in response to race riots in the 1950s. The carnival was founded in 1964 following the disturbances in Notting Hill six years earlier, which saw clashes between whites and newly arrived immigrants from the West Indies.
UNITED STATES
Papayas alert issued
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday issued an “import alert” after nearly 100 cases of salmonella in 23 states were linked to papayas imported from Mexico. Under the FDA alert, papayas from Mexico can be denied entry unless the importer proves they have been tested by an independent lab. “US and Mexican officials have been working closely together to find the source or sources of contamination of salmonella in fresh papayas entering the US from Mexico,” the FDA said in a statement.
BRAZIL
Murder plot woman freed
A 44-year-old woman was acquitted on Thursday of ordering the murder of her father, who raped her for 35 years and impregnated her 12 times, a court spokesman said. Severina Maria da Silva was charged with arranging the contract killing of her father in November 2005 and had confessed to the crime. She said that upon realizing her father was planning to rape one of their daughters, she had hired two men to kill him in his home in the northeastern city of Caruaru. Prosecutors told the jury that the woman should be freed as “she had no other solution but to commit the crime,” the spokesman for the court in Pernambuco state said. Though the woman had become pregnant a dozen times, only five of the children survived. The two men hired to commit the murder were each sentenced to 17 years in prison.
UNITED STATES
Students face kidnap charge
Two Chinese citizens have been indicted on charges they kidnapped a college classmate from his Rhode Island apartment as part of a plot to steal his US$80,000 Porsche. Attorney Peter Neronha said 25-year-old Zhenpeng “Todd” Hu, of Malden, Massachusetts, and 27-year-old Shengfeng “Alex” Cui, of East Providence, Rhode Island, are each charged with conspiracy and kidnapping. Hu is in custody and will be arraigned on Tuesday. An arrest warrant has been issued for Cui, who is believed to have fled the country. Prosecutors say the men assaulted, blindfolded and bound the victim on April 2 as part of a plan to steal his brand new Porsche.
UNITED STATES
Couple steals wedding feast
A couple of Pennsylvania newlyweds are behind bars after police said they were caught shoplifting food from a supermarket for their wedding reception. The Centre Daily Times reports 32-year-old Arthur Phillips III and his bride, 22-year-old Brittany Lurch, were arrested last Saturday after taking more than US$1,000 in merchandise from a supermarket in Centre Hall. Patton Township police said the couple was captured on surveillance footage loading a shopping cart and leaving the store without paying. The newspaper said the couple admitted taking the items when arrested. The newlyweds told officers they took the food for their wedding reception that afternoon.
UNITED STATES
Actors add burger to family
Actor brothers Donnie and Mark Wahlberg have licensed the name of a hamburger from a western New York chain of drive-in-style restaurants and plan to use it for their new eatery in Boston. Executives with Tom Wahl’s told the Democrat and Chronicle the brothers have licensed the “Wahlburger” name from the company so they can use it when they open a burger joint named Wahlburgers Restaurant in their hometown. Tom Wahl’s serves a cheeseburger called a Wahlburger and owns the federal trademark rights to the name.
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
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
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not