SUDAN
Darfur leader killed: army
The army killed a key rebel leader from the Darfur region, state media reported yesterday, three days after anti-government forces said they had begun advancing on the capital Khartoum. “The Sudanese army announce that they killed Khalil Ibrahim in fighting today west of Wadbanda in North Kordofan,” the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) said. Ibrahim headed the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the most heavily armed group in the Darfur region. The report could not be independently confirmed. On Saturday SUNA, quoting army spokesperson Sawarmi Khaled Saad, said the military was combing the North Kordofan-North Darfur border area after JEM “attacked civilians” and targeted local leaders while looting their property in the Umm-Gozain, Goz Abyadh and Aramal areas. Saad gave no casualty figures. JEM announced on Thursday through its London-based spokesperson that its forces were advancing from Darfur eastward toward the capital Khartoum.
SPAIN
Pianist could avoid jail term
A prosecutor’s office said it might not seek the customary seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence for noise pollution for a pianist who practiced at home. The office for the northeastern region of Catalonia said in a statement released late on Friday that it was studying a request for a partial pardon for 26-year-old Laia Martin, a professional musician, given that a “prison sentence could be considered overly stringent.” The office recommended prison earlier in the week after a neighbor claimed noise contamination from Martin’s eight-hour practice sessions had left her with psychological damage.
SYRIA
Thousands attend funerals
Thousands of people on Saturday attended prayers in memory of the 44 people killed by suicide bombers in Damascus as charge and counter-charge swirled over who was behind the attacks. The funeral prayers, at central Omayyad Mosque, came as an Arab League delegation met Foreign Minister Walid Muallem to discuss the arrival of a team to oversee a deal aimed at ending nine months of bloodshed. Mourners prayed before flag-draped coffins, while a crowd outside waved portraits of embattled President Bashar al-Assad and banners of the ruling Baath party as police stood watch. Religious Affairs Minister Abdel Sattar al-Sayyed read a statement from Christian and Muslim religious leaders “denouncing the criminal attacks on Friday ... and the murder, destruction and sabotage,” part of a “dangerous plot against Syria.”
YEMEN
Troops fire on protesters
Troops commanded by relatives of outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh have attacked a crowd of more than 100,000 protesters peacefully marching into the capital, killing at least 13 and driving the president to promise to leave the country. Yielding to pressure to defuse the country’s turmoil, Saleh said on Saturday he would leave for the US after forces overseen by his son and nephew opened fire on the protesters. They had marched for four days and 320km on foot to pressure the government not to give Saleh immunity from prosecution, in the first march of its kind in the impoverished nation that is home to a dangerous al-Qaeda offshoot. After protesters arrived at the southern entrances to the capital, forces of the elite Republican Guard fired on them with automatic weapons, tear gas and water cannons, sparking hours of clashes.
UNITED STATES
Famous crossing made over
A New York museum is unveiling a more accurate version of one of the nation’s most iconic scenes, George Washington crossing the Delaware River. The new painting shows Washington on a flat-bottomed ferry instead of the rowboat seen in the famous 1851 painting by Emanuel Leutze. The New York Times says the new picture shows Washington’s troops in the dead of night during a snowstorm, while the original shows a bright sky. It also eliminates the “Stars-and-Stripes” flag, which had not been adopted at that time. Washington crossed the river on Christmas 1776 to mount a surprise attack on Hessian forces at the Battle of Trenton during the Revolutionary War for independence from Britain. Artist Mort Kunstler painted the new picture. It debuts today at the New-York Historical Society.
UNITED STATES
Santa goes surfing
Before settling into his sleigh for his long slog delivering presents around the world, Santa Claus took a few hours’ break to go surfing on Saturday on the waves of the Pacific near Los Angeles. Surfing teacher Michael Pless, 61, took to the waves on Seal Beach wearing a custom-fitted “Surfing Santa” suit and a red bonnet, completing the looks with Santa’s traditional white beard. “I wanted to bring the spirit of Christmas to the beach,” he said. Pless, who has surfed as Santa Claus since the 1990s, said adults “think it’s absolutely great” and kids “think it’s absolutely fun” to bring a bit of the North Pole to sunny California.
UNITED STATES
Teen scales top seven peaks
A teenager became the youngest person to climb to the summit of the seven tallest mountains on Earth’s seven continents, according to his mother and his Web site. Jordan Romero, 15, called his mother, Leigh Ann Drake, on Saturday to confirm that he’d reached the top of Mount Vinson Massif in Antarctica. The California native beat the record previously held by British climber George Atkinson, who completed the ascents at age 16 in May. Romero’s team began the climb on Wednesday. Romero’s Facebook page, “Find Your Everest,” marked reaching the summit, but the climb is hardly over. “Descent still to come then we celebrate,” a post to the Facebook page read. Romero completes the climbs with his father and stepmother.
UNITED STATES
Man jailed for bestiality
A California man was sentenced last week to 10 years in prison for choking and sexually assaulting a chihuahua, and must now register as a sex offender, Sacramento prosecutors said on Saturday. Robert Edwards De Shields, who is confined to a wheelchair, was convicted last month of the crimes against the eight-month-old chihuahua mix living with the family of the South Sacramento home where he rented a living space. He was high on methamphetamine at the time of the attack. In March the owners found the dog almost lifeless, in pain and in shock, with De Shields in the garage. A veterinarian later found traces of asphyxiation, as well as serious injuries to the animal’s rectum and internal organs. De Shields, a meth addict, has been in and out of custody for years. In the last 19 to 20 years, he has only been free from jail or monitoring by the authorities for about five months, except for periods when he was on the run, according to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s office.
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