NEPAL
India finalizes power deal
India is finalizing an agreement to provide the energy-starved Himalayan nation with electricity, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said at the end of a three-day official visit yesterday. The country’s communist insurgency, which lasted until 2006, and ensuing political instability have hampered the construction of new power plants, and the country could not afford to map out an energy strategy on its own. A joint press released following Swaraj’s visit said the two countries were able to agree on 26 issues, including finalizing the power deal. Under the agreement, India would export electricity and help build hydroelectric power plants. The country has suffered from major power shortages with consumers facing power cuts up to 12 hours daily because the power plants are able to meet only half the total demand. No other details on the agreement were made available. India has a major influence over both the economy and politics in the country, and supplies all of its oil needs and much of its trade.
CHINA
Typhoon Matmo kills 13
Typhoon Matmo has killed 13 people and left thousands in need of basic living supplies, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said yesterday. Matmo first hit the Philippines, where it was known as Typhoon Henry, then dumped heavy rain on Taiwan before making landfall in the country on Wednesday and being downgraded to a tropical storm. It brought strong winds and heavy downpours to several provinces. Nine deaths were reported in Jiangxi Province and four in Guangdong Province, while nearly 290,000 residents have been relocated and about 37,000 are in urgent need of basic living supplies, the ministry said. The storm also destroyed homes and crops and caused direct economic losses of 3.37 billion yuan (US$547 million), it said.
IRAN
Five flogged for eating
Five people were publicly flogged as punishment for eating in public in violation of the rules of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, state media reported. The offenders ignored warnings from police and “ate intentionally” in the western city of Kermanshah, the province’s chief justice Ali Mozafari said, quoted by the official IRNA news agency. They were flogged for their actions, he added. Authorities issue warnings every year to respect Ramadan by not eating or drinking in public. However, the fast is often ignored, especially in hot weather with people drinking water in the street.
GERMANY
Child abductor arrested
Authorities have arrested a man suspected of sexually abusing children over the past two decades after finding a boy who had been missing for several weeks at his apartment. Petra Hertwig, a prosecutor in the eastern city of Cottbus, told news agency DPA on Saturday that the 52-year-old man is suspected of 175 counts of sexual abuse. The cases go back as far as 1994. The man was arrested after police on Friday found a mentally disabled 14-year-old boy who had been missing for four weeks at his apartment, where he had apparently been held. Hertwig said officials still have to determine what happened during that time. The other suspected cases, involving five possible victims, came to light during the search for the boy.
CUBA
Revolution Day celebrated
The country marked the 61st anniversary of the beginning of the Castro brothers’ revolution on Saturday, with a leading official calling on all islanders to be united and defend the nation’s communist system. President Raul Castro officiated at a ceremony in honor of the 1953 guerrilla assault on the Moncada Barracks led by former president Fidel Castro, but ceded speechmaking duties to Vice President Ramiro Valdes, a former commander in the rebellion. “We must preserve this unity above all things,” Valdes said. “We have no alternative but to keep fighting every day, until the last breath, for the country, with the revolution and with socialism.” The Castro brothers’ failed attack on the barracks in the eastern city of Santiago is considered the onset of the revolution, which culminated in 1959, when strongman Fulgencio Batista fled the island. The date is a national holiday celebrated each year with musical performances and patriotic speeches. On Saturday, the main ceremony took place in the provincial capital of Artemisa, west of Havana. “There is no place in our hearts for discouragement, and the word defeat has been erased from our vocabulary,” Valdes said.
UNITED STATES
Spider-Man punches officer
A man dressed as Spider-Man is under arrest for punching a police officer who told him to stop harassing tourists in New York’s Times Square. Junior Bishop is charged with assaulting an officer, resisting arrest and criminal mischief. Police say the officer interceded on Saturday after Bishop demanded at least US$5 from a woman he posed for a picture with, instead of the US$1 she offered. The officer told the costumed 25-year-old he could only accept tips — not require payment. Police say a yelling, cursing Bishop broke free from arrest after failing to produce identification and punched the officer in the face. The officer was treated for a cut and eye swelling and released.
BRAZIL
Brasilia hosts mass wedding
A hundred couples have tied the knot in a mass wedding held in the first post-FIFA World Cup event inside the capital’s Estadio Nacional Mane Garrincha. The collective civil marriage ceremony was held on Saturday on the venue’s soccer pitch. It was the 10th mass wedding held in the capital as part of the “Soul Mate” project organized by the city’s Justice Secretariat. Brasilia’s last mass wedding was held three months ago, in which 105 couples were married. In June and last month, the stadium hosted seven games of the recently concluded World Cup.
UNITED KINGDOM
Yemen abductee released
A teacher who was kidnapped in Yemen in February has been released safely, the Foreign Office said on Saturday. Mike Harvey, who was abducted on Feb. 12 on his way from an educational institute, was at the nation’s embassy in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, it said in a statement. “We are pleased to confirm that British hostage Mike Harvey held in Yemen since February has been released safely. He is being supported by staff at the British embassy and will be reunited with his family soon,” it added. When it occurred, the kidnapping was the third in Yemen in two weeks. Another Briton working in the oil business was abducted in February, two days after a German citizen was kidnapped. Kidnappings by armed tribesmen in Yemen are common, although most hostages are released after a ransom is paid. The Foreign Office advises citizens not to travel to the country.
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
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema