MALAYSIA
Tanker hijacked: IMB
Pirates have hijacked a Singapore-owned oil tanker in the Nigerian port of Lagos — the third attack in just more than two weeks in the Gulf of Guinea, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said yesterday. The vessel, which had 23 crew on board, was laden with fuel, the bureau’s Kuala Lumpur-based piracy reporting center said, adding that the pirates were sailing the ship into the open sea. It did not say how the pirates hijacked the tanker on Tuesday evening. Pirates hijacked and looted two oil tankers off nearby Togo last month. The two ships and all crew members were later freed.
CHINA
Monastery raided: report
A US broadcaster says hundreds of Chinese police raided a Tibetan monastery where two Tibetans set themselves on fire in June to protest what activists say is Beijing’s heavy-handed rule. Radio Free Asia said yesterday that security forces took away five monks during Saturday’s raid at the Zilkar monastery in Yushu Prefecture, Qinghai Province. The broadcaster cites an India-based Tibetan with sources in the region as saying that at least three of the monks were seized for providing foreign media agencies with details about the June self-immolation protests by a herder and a migrant carpenter. A woman surnamed Zhang who answered the phone at the local government office said she had not heard about the incident.
AUSTRALIA
Doctor banned for gay ‘cure’
A doctor has been severely reprimanded and banned from working as a general practitioner after prescribing a drug to a boy who came to him for help to “cure” his homosexuality. A Health Care Complaints Commission committee found Mark Craddock guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct over his treatment of the 18-year-old at a 10-minute consultation at his home in early 2008. Both men were at the time members of the Exclusive Brethren, a conservative Christian group whose members shun television, radio and the Internet and do not vote. The commission said Craddock failed to take a physical exam or medical history of the patient and did not refer him to a counsellor or psychologist. Instead, he prescribed cyprostat, a drug used to treat prostate cancer and manage sexual deviation by reducing testosterone, the commission alleged.
SPAIN
Bullfights back on TV
State TV will start airing live bullfights again after the new conservative government lifted a six-year ban on the tradition that has been hard hit by declining popularity and the economic crisis. The first fight was to be broadcast on the widely watched RTVE last night from the northern city of Valladolid. The live transmissions were halted in 2006 by the previous socialist administration, which said they were costly and coincided with youth TV viewing hours. New Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is a bullfighting fan.
NETHERLANDS
Police free break-in pianist
Police arrested and then released without charge a homeless man who triggered an alarm after breaking into a music shop to play the piano and get some sleep. The 60-year-old man, who once studied music and is now homeless, smashed the music shop’s window in the northern town of Assen in search of a place to sleep on Sunday. A spokesman for the police in Assen said he played well. “He told my colleagues he had studied the piano for seven years,” Dirk Neef said. The man was released without charge on Monday.
UNITED STATES
Man tries to eat fake bills
Authorities say a 35-year-old man tried to swallow several counterfeit US$50 bills after he was caught trying to use the bogus money at a western New York amusement park. The Sheriff’s Office says deputies were called to Darien Lake Theme Park and Resort on Sunday night after Larry Jones bought french fries with a US$50 bill. Deputies say a park employee determined the bill was counterfeit and called security. While being taken away, deputies say Jones stuffed five counterfeit bills into his mouth and tried to eat them. Security officers retrieved the bills before Jones swallowed them. Jones was charged with possessing forged currency and tampering with evidence.
SOUTH AFRICA
Buffalo sells for US$3.25m
The Stud Game Breeders’ Association said a young buffalo bull sold at auction for a record 26 million rand (US$3.25 million). Owner Jacques Malan of Lumarie Game Farm says the four years and 10-month-old bull “Horizon” has horns measuring 130.5cm long. He said on Tuesday that he applied a knowledge of genetics garnered from his father since childhood aiming “to breed back the old giants of the bush of Africa, which have been hunted out over past centuries.” Horizon will be used for breeding. The association said it is the most expensive wild animal ever sold in South Africa.
HONDURAS
Deal on private cities signed
The government has signed a deal with private investors for the construction of three privately run cities, with their own legal and tax systems. The memorandum of agreement signed on Tuesday is part of a controversial experiment meant to bring badly needed economic growth to the small Central American country. Its weak government and failing infrastructure are being overwhelmed by corruption, drug-linked crime and lingering instability from a 2009 political coup. Both sides hope to begin work on the first city in coming weeks and say the project could create 5,000 jobs over the next six months. The project is opposed by civil society groups, including indigenous Garifuna people who say they do not want their land to be used for the project.
VENEZUELA
Massacre ‘probe’ rejected
The government came under renewed pressure on Tuesday over its assertion that an alleged massacre of about 80 Yanomami indigenous people did not take place. An umbrella grouping of indigenous communities called Coiam urged the government to keep probing. The attack is alleged to have been perpetrated by illegal Brazilian gold miners in July in the south. Several government ministers have said investigators who traveled to the remote area on Friday found no evidence of any violence. However, Coiam said the team of prosecutors and military police never made it to the area in question and was in no position to say no crime took place. Survival, a London-based NGO, said it took five or six days of hiking to reach the Yanomami community in question and there was no way the government team could have made it there and back so fast.
UNITED STATES
Memorial set for Armstrong
The country will have a chance to say goodbye to Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, in a memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral on Sept. 13. The 10am service will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the Web sites of the cathedral and space agency. Armstrong died on Aug. 25 and had a private service in Ohio.
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