HONG KONG
Rangers promote ivory ban
African park rangers are urging the Legislative Council to approve a ban on ivory sales, but warn that giving in to traders’ demands for compensation would fuel more elephant poaching. The council yesterday heard submissions from the rangers and other groups on the government’s long-awaited proposal to prohibit all local ivory trading by 2021. The hearing was marked by a testy standoff between traders and conservationists who say the territory’s prime role in the ivory trade is pushing elephants toward extinction. Erik Mararv, manager of Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said 100 elephants are poached a day while 1,000 rangers have been killed over the past 10 years trying to protect them. The territory’s licensed ivory dealers and traders, are permitted to sell only ivory acquired before a 1990 ban on international trading. They want millions of dollars in return for giving up their stockpile.
INDIA
Baby killed as mother raped
A nine-month-old baby died when she was thrown out of a moving autorickshaw by men accused of gang raping her mother, police said yesterday. Police said they had registered a case of murder and gang rape after the alleged attack on Monday last week in Gurgaon, on the outskirts of New Delhi. Gurgaon Commissioner of Police Sandeep Khirwar said the baby had died of head injuries, and estimated the mother was aged 19 or 20. The woman said she had been attacked after getting into an autorickshaw with her daughter about midnight to travel to her parents’ house. There were already two men on board, along with the driver.
INDIA
Roy publishes second book
Arundhati Roy’s eagerly awaited second novel went on sale yesterday, two decades after her prize-winning debut The God of Small Things propelled her to global fame and launched her career as an outspoken critic of injustice in her homeland. Since winning the Booker Prize with her 1997 book, which sold about 8 million, she turned to non-fiction writing, taking on issues ranging from poverty and globalization to the conflict in Kashmir. She said The Ministry of Utmost Happiness took 10 years to produce.
MALI
EU funding Sahel force
The EU is giving 50 million euros (US56.27 million) to set up a joint African military force in the Sahel region to fight Muslim militants, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said on Monday in Bamako. The funds will help pay for the troops to fight terrorism, cross-border crime and illegal immigration, she said. Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdoulaye Diop on Monday said the heads of state of the Sahel G5 had decided to double the number of troops in the new force from 5,000 to 10,0000.
THAILAND
Canadian convicted in theft
A court yesterday sentenced a Canadian man to 14 months in jail for crimes linked to a bank robbery in Singapore where he allegedly used nothing more than a threatening note to steal US$22,000. Roach was accused of strolling into a Standard Chartered branch in July last year, handing the teller a scrap of paper and walking off with the cash. The 28-year-old fled to Bangkok where he was arrested a few days later in a hostel. Roach was convicted of violating money laundering and customs laws by bringing the loot into the kingdom.
UNITED STATES
Beijing diplomat resigns
The top career diplomat at the embassy in Beijing has stepped down amid suggestions that he opposes President Donald Trump’s climate policy. Embassy charge d’affaires David Rank was a 27-year veteran Department of State officer appointed to serve in Beijing in January last year. “Mr Rank made a personal decision. We appreciate his years of dedicated service to the State Department,” embassy spokeswoman Mary Beth Polley said. News of Rank’s resignation was broken on Twitter by veteran China reporter John Pomfret, an editor at the SupChina Web site. According to Pomfret, Rank stepped down because he “could not back Trump on climate.”
GERMANY
Troops to move to Jordan
The army is set to transfer its troops from a key base in Turkey to Jordan, Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday, after talks broke down with Ankara on the subject. The Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey has been at the center of a dispute between the NATO allies since Ankara blocked a visit by German parliamentarians last month. Her announcement came after Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu told a joint news conference with Minister of Foreign Affairs Sigmar Gabriel in Ankara that MPs could still not visit Incirlik. The Cabinet is to meet on Wednesday to decide on an eventual move for the 280 military personnel concerned, plus 10,000 tonnes of materiel, Von der Leyen said.
UNITED STATES
Awning worker goes postal
A recently fired worker from an awning company in Florida followed through with a plan to kill his former colleagues, singling out five and fatally shooting them in the head before taking his own life, authorities said. Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said John Robert Neumann shot and killed himself at the sound of approaching sirens on Monday. Demings said Neumann had a “negative relationship” with at least one of his former coworkers in Orlando. He would not say why Neumann was fired in April.
UNITED STATES
Woman stabs relatives
A Southern California woman who was once found not guilty by reason of insanity to the attempted murder of her own children is now suspected of stabbing her daughter and two granddaughters. Colton police are looking for Nicole Darrington-Clark, 43, the suspect in Monday’s attack that left her one-year-old granddaughter dead and critically injured her daughter and five-year-old granddaughter. In 2005, Darrington-Clark pleaded guilty to stabbing her 14-year-old son and throwing her 10-year-old daughter out of a moving minivan. Neither child was seriously injured. However, a judge found Darrington-Clark not guilty by reason of insanity and sent her to a mental hospital.
SPAIN
Madrid gears up for pride
Madrid is gearing up to host an international lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride celebration by installing “inclusive” and “gender equal” traffic signals across the city. Figures of women or girls, identified by skirts and ponytails, started going up on Monday at intersections that previously featured the familiar figure of a man in mid-stride to let pedestrians know when to cross. Other walk, do not walk signs are designed to show couples — some same-sex and some opposite gender — holding hands. Madrid is hosting the this year’s World Pride celebrations from June 23 through July 2.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion