AFGHANISTAN
Ex-Guantanamo man killed
NATO forces said they have killed a former Guantanamo detainee who was a “key affiliate of the al-Qaeda network” in an overnight raid. NATO said Sabar Lal Melma organized attacks in eastern Kunar province and helped fund insurgent operations. The military alliance said he was in contact with senior al-Qaeda members in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Troops surrounded Melma’s house in Jalalabad city on Friday night. NATO spokesman Captain Justin Brockhoff said Melma came out of the building holding an AK-47 assault rifle and was killed. Several other people were detained. A guard at Melma’s house said Melma was released from Guantanamo about four years ago.
JAPAN
Two dead as storm hits
Two people were killed and dozens injured as a strong tropical storm landed yesterday with heavy rains causing floods that damaged homes and disrupted traffic. Tropical storm Talas hit the island of Shikoku in western Japan at around 1am (GMT) and was moving north at a slow pace, the Meteorological Agency said. TV footage showed homes being flooded and large waves pounding harbors. Domestic media reported that five people were missing with about 40 injured in addition to the two killed. The agency expects the storm to finish passing through Japan early today.
VIETNAM
Six girls drown in river
Six schoolgirls drowned when their bamboo boat capsized as they tried to pick flowers from floating water hyacinth plants on a branch of Hanoi’s Red River, a health official said yesterday. The classmates, all aged 12, had rowed out towards the middle of the tributary in a suburban area north of the capital when the accident happened on Friday, the local medical worker said, declining to be named. “There were seven girls on board. Local residents could rescue only one after some other kids who were bathing closer to shore shouted for help,” she said. None of the girls who died were able to swim. A joint funeral was held the same day for all six girls.
MALAYSIA
Tusks seized by customs
More than 1,000 African elephant tusks have been seized in two separate shipments in the past two months, reports said yesterday. In the first incident, customs and wildlife officials seized 405 tusks in a container at the southern port of Pasir Gudang on July 8. The ship carrying the cargo was from an undisclosed African port that had been through Singapore. A month later enforcement officials found 664 tusks in a container from the United Arab Emirates in the northern port of Butterworth. Wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC described Malaysia as a major wildlife transit hub after Hong Kong authorities seized nearly two tonnes of elephant ivory worth about US$1.7 million in a shipment from Malaysia last month.
INDONESIA
Support voiced for Libya
Bali said yesterday it supported Libya’s peaceful transition towards democracy following the downfall of Muammar Qaddafi. “Indonesia supports the National Transitional Council in Libya in carrying out the peaceful transition towards democracy,” Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said in a statement. Natalegawa said the process of the democratic transition must reflect the wishes and aspirations of Libyans. “A political process which grants Libyans the chance to decide their own future is the best solution in resolving the issues in Libya,” he said.
UNITED STATES
Man bites snake
A snake bite left the victim seriously hurt, but the injured party is not whom you would expect. Police say a python underwent emergency surgery after a man allegedly bit the creature twice. Officers were called to Del Paso Heights in Sacramento, California, around 6:30pm on Thursday after a passer-by reported that a man was lying on the ground and may have been assaulted, according to Sergeant Andrew Pettit. When they arrived, they found David Senk, 54, still lying there — but police say he was not the one who was assaulted. Another man approached officers and accused Senk of taking two bites out of his 1m pet python, Pettit said. Senk was arrested on suspicion of unlawfully maiming or mutilating a reptile and booked on US$10,000 bail. In a jailhouse interview with KXTL-TV on Friday, Senk said he had no memory of the incident and that he has a drinking problem.
UNITED STATES
Planes collide in Alaska
Authorities say two single-engine planes have collided in midair over western Alaska and one of the pilots is presumed dead. Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters says the two pilots were the only people aboard the planes when they collided on Friday near the village of Nightmute. She says one plane landed and the other crashed and burned.
UNITED STATES
Plane deflected from Obama
A fighter jet has intercepted a small civilian airplane in restricted airspace near the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, and escorted it to an airport in West Virginia. The North American Aerospace Defense Command says the Piper plane was out of radio communication when it was intercepted by an F-15E fighter at about 4:45pm. It was diverted to the airport in Martinsburg. US President Barack Obama was at Camp David at the time. The White House said the pilot of the small plane would be interviewed.
UNITED STATES
World War II’s end marked
About 20 World War II veterans gathered aboard the battleship Missouri in Pearl Harbor to mark the 66th year since the end of World War II. The USS Missouri was anchored in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945, when it hosted Japanese leaders who signed surrender documents formally ending the war. The now decommissioned vessel is currently a museum called the Battleship Missouri Memorial. On Friday, about 300 people — including the veterans and active duty sailors, marines, airmen and soldiers — observed the anniversary of the end of the war with a ceremony on the vessel’s teak deck.
UNITED STATES
Children catch new swine flu
Health officials say a novel strain of swine flu has sickened two children in Pennsylvania and Indiana. One had contact with pigs. The other is believed to have been infected by a caregiver who had contact with pigs, suggesting the virus can spread person-to-person. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the new virus contains a gene from the H1N1 swine flu that caused a worldwide scare two years ago, plus parts of other viruses that have infected pigs over the past decade. The children were infected in July and last month and have recovered. Both had received flu shots last year. Officials are investigating other reports of illness in people who attended an agricultural fair in Pennsylvania. No additional cases have been confirmed so far.
‘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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in