MALAYSIA
Activist announces PM bid
A prominent rights activist yesterday announced her candidacy in upcoming polls in what analysts see as a boost for the opposition’s attempt to unseat Prime Minister Najib Razak. Speculation has been rife that Najib would call elections within weeks as his ruling Barisan Nasional coalition inches closer to the end of its five-year term. Maria Chin Abdullah, 62, head of the election reform group Bersih (“Clean”) that has led major street rallies against Najib, said she would stand as an independent, but under the banner of the opposition coalition. She is the latest high-profile civil society figure to join the electoral bandwagon after former think tank head Wan Saiful Wan Jan. “They’re joining because there’s a real chance now for Barisan Nasional to be defeated,” University of Tasmania’s Asia Institute director James Chin said.
NEW ZEALAND
Hottest summer on record
The nation has sweltered through its hottest summer on record and can expect more of the same if climate change continues unabated, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research said yesterday. Daily temperatures averaged 18.8°C, 2.1°C more than normal, the institute said. With the mercury reaching as high as 38.7°C on South Island, the institute said it was the hottest summer since records began in 1909. The high temperatures prompted the government to declare a mid-level drought in some areas and provide assistance to struggling farmers.
SOUTH KOREA
Ex-president Lee questioned
Prosecutors yesterday summoned former president Lee Myung-bak for questioning as a criminal suspect in a bribery scandal, a report said. Allegations of corruption involving the 76-year-old’s relatives and aides during his 2008 to 2013 presidential term have mounted in recent weeks. Seoul prosecutors have been investigating multiple cases of bribery amounting to millions of US dollars, with the net closing in around the former leader.
JAPAN
James Bond volcano erupts
A volcano that featured in a 1960s James Bond movie shot smoke and ash thousands of meters into the sky yesterday, prompting the cancelation of flights to and from a nearby airport, with the eruption likely to continue. Television footage showed smoke and ash billowing high into the sky from Shinmoedake, with lava visible deep inside a crater at the mountain, which featured in the 1967 movie You Only Live Twice. NHK said the smoke and ash had risen as far as 3,650m in the peak’s strongest eruption in seven years.
INDONESIA
Lawyer vows land ban fight
A lawyer said he is to appeal a verdict by a regional court that upheld a decades-old ban on ethnic Chinese owning land in Yogyakarta Province, which he called racist and discriminatory. Handoko Wibowo had filed a petition in a district court in Yogyakarta, calling for a repeal of the 1975 edict that gives only indigenous Indonesians the right to own land in the central province. Minorities only get usage rights. The court last week dismissed the lawsuit, reasoning that the edict was imposed to protect the interests of indigenous Indonesians who are less wealthy than ethnic Chinese, said Handoko, who rejected that conclusion. “The edict goes against the agrarian law that gives all citizens the right to own land. It is time we repealed it,” he said over the telephone.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the