FIJI
Church leader jailed
The leader of an evangelical church was jailed for two years yesterday after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman who approached him for counseling in June last year after suffering anxiety and depression after the birth of her fourth child, reports said. All Nations church founder Reverend Epeli Ratabacaca was sentenced in Suva High Court after being found guilty last week on one count of sexual assault and acquitted on two rape charges, Fiji Broadcasting Corp reported. Ratabacaca, 54, who pleaded not guilty to all charges, was initially sentenced to four years, but the jail term was reduced to reflect the military veteran’s previously clean record, news site fijivillage.com said. Judge Paul Madigan described Ratabacaca’s actions as “a gross breach of trust” that warranted a custodial sentence, adding that the cleric had expressed no remorse toward his victim. The All Nations Christian Fellowship’s Web site says Ratabacaca founded the evangelical movement 15 years ago.
TONGA
Drugs probe launched
Police yesterday said a multinational drugs investigation had been launched after the discovery of a mystery yacht with a dead body aboard stranded on a remote Pacific reef. A pair of divers spotted the yacht last week off the Vava’u island group and found the decomposing body of a Caucasian man when they boarded to investigate, police commissioner Grant O’Fee said. He said investigators were treating the yacht as a crime scene and a probe was underway involving police from Australia, the Cook Islands and the US Drug Enforcement Agency. O’Fee declined to say whether drugs had been found on the yacht, revealing only that Tonga was not believed to be its intended destination. He said the body had not been identified and an autopsy would be carried out this week.
SRI LANKA
Chief justice probed
Parliament has appointed 11 lawmakers to investigate the accusations in an impeachment motion against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake. A group of lawmakers submitted the motion two weeks ago that accuses Bandaranayake of having unexplained wealth and misusing her power. The lawmakers called for a select committee to investigate 14 charges cited in the motion. Bandaranayake has rejected the allegations against her. Opposition parties and independent analysts say the impeachment process is a politically motivated attempt to stifle the judiciary’s independence and concentrate power for President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
AUSTRALIA
INXS end 35-year tour run
Rockers INXS are giving up touring after 35 years. Drummer Jon Farriss announced the end of the band’s remarkable run of performances during a concert in Perth earlier this week. The band later confirmed the news in a statement. INXS was formed in 1977 and released their self-titled debut album in 1980. They achieved worldwide fame with hits such as New Sensation, Need You Tonight and Devil Inside. Frontman Michael Hutchence died in 1997. In a statement on Tuesday, the band paid tribute to their friend, saying: “We lived for each other in the trenches and we loved each other. It was the six of us against the world and then suddenly and inexplicably we were but five.”
SWITZERLAND
Diamond sale posts records
The flawless “Archduke Joseph” diamond, from India’s famous Golconda mines, broke several world records when it was sold at auction in Geneva late on Tuesday for US$21.47 million. The price which the 76 carat jewel fetched at the Christie’s sale is a record for the auction of a clear, colorless diamond. It is also the highest auction price per carat for such a gem and the record for a Golconda diamond, the same mines that produced the Koh-i-Noor which adorns the British Queen’s crown. The “Archduke Joseph,” which was bought by an anonymous bidder, once belonged to the Habsburgs, former rulers of the Austrian empire.
UNITED STATES
Petraeus in new game
Former CIA director David Petraeus has landed on his feet with a new gig in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. The retired Army general who stepped down as intelligence chief last week amid a scandal surrounding his extramarital affair pops up in the highly anticipated Activision Blizzard Inc first-person shooter game released on Tuesday. A character with Petraeus’ name and likeness voiced by Jim Meskimen briefly appears as the secretary of defense in the year 2025. Black Ops II also features an encounter with Manuel Noriega, a female president resembling Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and an aircraft carrier named USS Barack Obama.
FRANCE
Lotto win breaks record
A lucky punter beat the national record for a EuroMillions lottery haul on Tuesday, winning a staggering 169.8 million euros (almost US$216 million), enough to buy nearly four tonnes of gold. The sole winner of the draw beats the former record, won by a man in the northwestern Calvados area last year, by more than 7 million euros. Organizers La Francaise des Jeux did not say what part of the country Tuesday’s winner was from. Whoever it is will instantly become the 221st richest French person, according to Challenge magazine’s rich list.
FRANCE
Two Sri Lankans charged
Two Sri Lankan men were charged on Tuesday with the murder of a former commander of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers rebel group in Paris, a judicial source said. Nadarajah Mathinthiran was gunned down on Thursday night last week as he was leaving the headquarters of the Tamil Coordination Committee in France (CCTF), an organization regarded as a front for what remains of the Tigers. The source said one of the men was suspected of ordering the murder and the other of carrying out the hit on the Sri Lankan-born French national. Mathinthiran was a leader in the Paris division of the CCTF, and in February was sentenced to five years in prison for extortion and financing terrorism. Mathinthiran’s daughter on Monday accused the Sri Lankan government of involvement in her father’s murder.
UNITED STATES
Man recants sex claim
The man who claimed he had underage sex with the puppeteer behind Sesame Street character Elmo recanted his claims on Tuesday, media reports said. The unnamed man, now 23, had claimed that Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash had a sexual relationship with him when the accuser was 16 years old. “He wants it to be known that his sexual relationship with Mr Clash was an adult consensual relationship,” the law firm Andreozzi and Associates, who represent the man, told media outlets in a statement. Clash, 52, had denied the allegations.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
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