MALDIVES
Voters head to ballot box
Huge crowds yesterday flocked to closely guarded polling stations to vote in the island nation’s third multiparty presidential elections, widely seen as a referendum on its young democracy. President Yameen Abdul Gayoom and opposition candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, voted in the capital, Male, shortly after polls opened. An election-eve police raid of Solih’s main campaign office cast a pall over the vote. A police warrant cited police intelligence that Solih’s campaign office might have been used to coordinate vote-buying. The raid was the latest sign of a government crackdown against the opposition.
AUSTRALIA
Navy joins rescue mission
The Australian Defence Force yesterday joined an international mission to rescue an injured Indian sailor stranded in the Indian Ocean while competing in the round-the-world Golden Globe Race. The mast of Abhilash Tomy’s yacht Thuriya broke off on Friday when it was rolled in a storm and the yachtsman suffered what he described as a “severe back injury.” The 39-year-old Indian navy commander was “incapacitated on his bunk inside his boat” about 3,704km off Western Australia state, organizers said. Two P8 Poseidons — one from the Royal Australian Air Force and another from the Indian armed forces — yesterday flew over the yacht to inspect it, said the Maritime Safety Authority, which is coordinating the search.
JAPAN
Space capsule launched
An uncrewed space capsule was yesterday headed to the International Space Station filled with cargo including food, equipment and new batteries. It was launched at 2:52am from the Tanegashima Space Center after a two-week delay caused by bad weather and a mechanical problem. The supply ship is a 9m-long cylinder that is to be retrieved by the space station’s robotic arm. It is named Kounotori, which means white stork. The 5.5 tonnes of cargo includes racks and equipment for experiments and an experimental re-entry capsule to try to demonstrate a novel technology to bring back samples from the space station.
SINGAPORE
PM warns against scam
Bitcoin fraudsters are misusing the names of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam to tout investments, prompting a warning from Lee. “Scammers have used DPM Tharman’s and my name to solicit Bitcoin investments,” Lee said in a tweet on Saturday evening. “Don’t believe everything you see on the Internet!” Two fraudulent Web sites trumpeting get-rich-quick bitcoin schemes used fabricated comments attributed to Shanmugaratnam, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said last week.
AUSTRALIA
Sharks killed after attacks
Four large sharks have been killed after a woman and a girl were attacked at a popular Great Barrier Reef tourist spot. Both victims — one of them just 12 years old — were still in hospital yesterday after being mauled in separate incidents just a day apart last week at the Whitsunday Islands. Drum lines, which use baited hooks to catch the predators, ensnared four tiger sharks — one 3.3m long and the others each in excess of 2m — a Fisheries Queensland spokesman said. “While sharks of this size are potentially very dangerous to humans, it is unclear if they were responsible for injuries caused to two swimmers this week,” he said.
FRANCE
Macron loses more support
President Emmanuel Macron’s popularity fell further this month, a poll showed yesterday. Only 29 percent of those surveyed this month said they were satisfied with Macron, down from 34 percent last month and 39 percent two months ago, the Ifop poll for Le Journal du Dimanche found. The poll was conducted on Sept. 14 to Saturday, with a sample of 1,964 people.
GERMANY
Leaders debate spy boss
The leaders of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition were yesterday trying to resolve a standoff over the future of the nation’s domestic intelligence chief and stabilize their alliance. The Social Democrats want BfV Director Hans-Georg Maassen removed for appearing to downplay recent violence against migrants, but Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer has stood by him. Last week, coalition leaders agreed to replace Maassen as head of BfV, but give him a new job as a deputy interior minister, which infuriated many members of the center-left Social Democrats. Seehofer told the Bild am Sonntag that coalition leaders will have to spend a lot of time in telephone calls over the weekend, but would only meet when it clear how a solution could work. Maassen is a “highly competent” employee who has not violated any rules and that he would not outright dismiss him, the minister said.
RUSSIA
More pension protests
Thousands of people rallied nationwide again on Saturday to protest the government’s plan to raise the eligibility age for retirement pensions by five years. Several thousand people attended a Moscow rally organized by the Communist Party and other leftist groups, which was authorized by city officials. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov called for rolling back the proposed changes, arguing that the government should redistribute resources to avoid raising the pension age. “They keep reaching into your pockets,” he told protesters. The demonstrations were peacefull.
CANADA
Tornado left ‘war scene’
A powerful tornado that carved a path through parts of the capital late on Friday snapped trees, tossed cars and obliterated dozens of homes leaving what Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson on Saturday said resembled “a war scene.” “Literally, it looks like some bomb was dropped from the air,” Watson told reporters as he described what he saw in the area of Dunrobin, a semi-rural community about 35km west of downtown Ottowa where about 60 buildings were wiped out or partially destroyed. More than 150,000 customers were still without power following the tornado, which churned through pockets of Ottawa’s west and south ends, as well as densely populated sections of the Quebec city of Gatineau. Authorities said dozens of people suffered injuries, but there were no reports of fatalities.
UNITED STATES
Airline seats focus of House
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would be required to set new minimum requirements for seats on airplanes under legislation to be considered in the House of Representatives this week. The regulation of seat width and legroom is part of a five-year extension of FAA programs announced early on Saturday by Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate committees that oversee the nation’s air travel. Congress faces a deadline of Sunday to keep the programs running.
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
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