UNITED STATES
Alligator bite victim charged
A Florida airboat captain whose hand was bitten off by a 2.7m alligator faces charges of feeding the animal. Collier County Jail records show 63-year-old Wallace Weatherholt was charged on Friday with unlawful feeding of an alligator and later posted a US$1,000 bond. Weatherholt was attacked on June 12 as he was giving an Indiana family a tour of the Everglades. The family said Weatherholt hung a fish over the side of the boat and had his hand at the water’s surface when the alligator attacked. Wildlife officers tracked and euthanized the alligator. Weatherholt’s hand was found, but could not be reattached. A criminal investigation followed because feeding alligators is a second-degree misdemeanor.
UNITED STATES
Zoo has sixth panda cub
A 20-year-old giant panda, Bai Yun, has given birth at the San Diego Zoo, setting a record. Officials say it is the sixth cub born at the zoo and the most at a breeding facility outside of China. In a blog post, zoo officials said Bai Yun immediately scooped the cub into her arms and comforted the newborn. Because of Bai Yun’s advanced age, the pregnancy was considered high-risk, but zookeepers said mother and baby are doing fine. The sex of the cub will not be known for several months.
COLOMBIA
FARC release pilots
Leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas released two civilian helicopter pilots they were holding hostage to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the group said on Sunday. The pilots, who were kidnapped on July 10, were taken to the city of Popayan, 650km southwest of Bogota, where they will meet with relatives, the ICRC said in a statement. The pilots, identified as Juan Carlos Alvarez and Alejandro de Jesus Ocampo, were handed to representatives of ICRC and a local human rights group in Cauca Province, the ICRC said. The rebels captured the pilots when their helicopter made an emergency landing in a football field in the village of El Plateado. The rebels said that the helicopter had been flying surveillance.
UNITED STATES
Site sued for underage sex
Three Washington state teenagers who say they were sold online for sex have sued the Web site Backpage.com, a popular online portal for escort services, accusing the site’s owners of enabling their exploitation. Two 13-year-old girls from Pierce County and one 15-year-old from King County, filed the lawsuit on Friday in Pierce County Superior Court, the News Tribune of Tacoma reported on Sunday. Seattle attorney Liz McDougall, who represents Backpage’s corporate owners, said the lawsuit will not pass legal muster. The lawsuit alleges that photographs of the underage girls in skimpy garb appeared on ads on the site, paid for by their pimps. It accuses the owners of doing nothing to prevent it.
FIJI
Ex-PM guilty of graft
Former prime minister Laisenia Qarese was found guilty of abuse of office yesterday in a long-running corruption case dating back to the early 1990s. Qarese, who became prime minister in 2000 and was ousted in a military coup six years later, was convicted on nine charges of abuse of office and failing to discharge his duty in a case brought by the nation’s anti-corruption watchdog. Qarese, who pleaded not guilty, will be sentenced today and could face up to four years in jail. The conviction renders him ineligible to contest national elections to be held in 2014.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
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