GERMANY
Trailer of chocolate stolen
A semi-trailer full of chocolate was stolen in Neustadt, Hesse, over the weekend, police said on Tuesday, calling for witnesses who might have seen the sweet-toothed thieves. Police spokesman Martin Ahlich said the cooled truck trailer contained 22 tonnes of chocolate, including Kinder Surprise eggs, Nutella hazelnut-chocolate cream and Valparaiso chocolate fruit pearls. Ahlich said the thieves must have brought in a truck to haul away the sweet spoils. “It’s not even clear if they were after the sweets or after the trailer. At this point we don’t know what their motive was,” he said. The chocolate swag is worth 50,000 to 70,000 euros (US$59,000 to US$82,000).
PORTUGAL
Fallen tree kills 11
A tree that fell on Tuesday during a popular religious festival on the island of Madeira killed up to 11 people, local media reports said. RTP public television showed emergency workers gathered under a group of tall trees near Funchal on the Atlantic Ocean island. Ambulances were shown pulling away from the site while workers wielding chain saws cut away limbs from an enormous tree that lay on the ground. The tree fell while a large crowd was gathered as part of the Nossa Senhora do Monte festival. Local media were giving different death tolls. RTP said 11 people died, including two children, and 35 were injured. TSF radio said there were two fatalities and 10 injured.
UNITED STATES
Man admits killing deputy
A judge has accepted the guilty pleas of a man charged with killing a sheriff’s deputy and wounding another while escaping from an Iowa jail. Wesley Correa-Carmenaty, 24, on Tuesday entered the guilty pleas to murder, attempted murder, escape, kidnapping and other crimes. His trial was set to begin on Tuesday, but his attorney informed authorities last week that Correa-Carmenaty would change his plea in Pottawattamie County District Court in Council Bluffs. Authorities said Correa-Carmenaty had just been sentenced on May 1 to 45 years in prison in an unrelated murder case when he grabbed one of the deputies’ guns while being transferred to the county jail. He shot them both and used the jail van to escape. He was recaptured that day in Omaha, Nebraska, after carjacking a woman at gunpoint.
UNITED KINGDOM
Craig doing one last Bond
Daniel Craig has confirmed he will reprise the role of James Bond one last time, ending months of speculation. Craig made the revelation on Tuesday during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. When Colbert asked whether he would return as Bond, Craig said: “Yes,” to cheers from the audience. Eon Productions, the company that runs the movie franchise, said on its Web site that the 25th Bond movie would be released in US movie theaters on Nov. 8, 2019, with a traditional earlier release in Britain and the rest of the world.
UNITED STATES
Bald eagle had toxic lead
Pennsylvania wildlife officials said a bald eagle that is suffering from lead poisoning is in guarded condition. The bird was letting people get close to it on a wildlife trail near Apollo over the weekend. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports it was taken to a wildlife center in Saegertown, where blood tests confirmed it had lead poisoning. A wildlife education expert said the bird could have picked up lead from scavenging animals that were shot or from a fishing sinker.
PAKISTAN
Roadside bomb kills eight
A roadside bomb on Monday killed eight soldiers in a remote district in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, a government official said on Tuesday, the second attack within days in the region. The blast in Harnai District was about 160km east of the provincial capital, Quetta, where a suicide bomber rammed his motorcycle into an army truck on Saturday last week, killing eight soldiers and seven civilians. The separatist Baloch Liberation Army group claimed responsibility for Monday’s bombing in telephone calls made to media in Quetta, while the Islamic State group said it carried out Saturday. Army chief General Qamar Bajwa said the attack was an attempt to mar celebrations as the nation marked 70 years since independence from British colonial rule.
KENYA
Five police killed in ambush
A government official said suspected al-Shabab extremists have killed five police officers in an ambush in the country’s east. Northeastern regional coordinator Mohamud Saleh on Tuesday said fighters with the al-Qaeda-linked group planted a mine that blew up a patrol car carrying seven officers in Garissa County. Saleh says an unknown number of gunmen then attacked the vehicle. One officer was wounded and another escaped to safety, according to a police report. At least 45 policemen have been killed in such attacks by al-Shabab since May.
EGYPT
Police killed in Sinai
Security officials said suspected militants have shot dead two police in Arish, capital of the turbulent north of the Sinai Peninsula, where an Islamic State group affiliate is fighting security forces. The officials said gunmen sprayed a police lieutenant’s car with gunfire on Tuesday, killing him instantly. Later, assailants shot dead a policeman as he left his home. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Tuesday’s killings took to at least 12 the number of soldiers and policemen killed in northern Sinai since the weekend.
ALGERIA
President sacks PM
The official Algerian Press Service said stroke-afflicted president Abdelaziz Bouteflika has fired Abdelmadjid Tebboune as prime minister. The agency, citing a presidential statement, on Tuesday said that former prime minister Ahmed Ouyahia is back in the job he has held three times. Tebboune had been prime minister since the ruling coalition’s victory in parliamentary elections in May. Bouteflika suffered a stroke in 2013 and lives in medicalized housing. Opposition parties have expressed doubts about whether the 80-year-old still fully controls the reins of presidential power.
ECUADOR
Chinese held over sharks
A court remanded in custody the Chinese crew of a fishing boat suspected of catching endangered sharks in the Galapagos Islands marine reserve, Minister for the Environment Tarsicio Granizo said. The Chinese-flagged Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999 was caught on Sunday with 300 tonnes of fish, mostly sharks, including protected species such as the hammerhead, Granizo said. A judge on San Cristobal ordered the ship’s crew of about 20 to be held in custody pending court proceedings, Granizo told a news conference in Quito.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not