RUSSIA
Navalny detained on release
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was yesterday detained on his release from prison after serving a 30-day sentence for an unauthorized protest, his spokesperson said. “Alexei Navalny was detained outside the detention center,” Kira Yarmysh wrote on Twitter, adding that the politician was taken to a central Moscow police station. Yarmysh said Navalny was accused of violating a different protest law and faces up to 20 days in prison. He is due to appear in court later in the day, she said. Navalny was in jail for a month for a protest he organized on Jan. 28, violating strict laws that forbid any public event without city hall’s authorization.
GERMANY
Spy head made an adviser
Leaders of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition on Sunday reached a deal to resolve a standoff over the future of the head of the domestic BfV spy agency, Hans-Georg Maassen. The coalition leaders agreed to make Maassen a “special adviser” at the Ministry of the Interior with responsibility for “European and international issues,” instead of deputy minister. He is to remain at his current pay level. A deputy interior minister and expert on construction issues, Social Democrat Gunther Adler, will now keep his job rather than make way for Maassen.
RUSSIA
Leak reveals spy tactics
A leak of government data about the suspects in the Salisbury, England, poisoning may provide a rare insight into how the military intelligence agency provides cover identities for its agents abroad. Investigative journalists have unearthed what appears to be a series of passports with similar numbers belonging to suspected intelligence officers, including the Salisbury suspects Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov. The passport holders include a former military attache who was expelled from Poland for espionage in 2014 and is alleged to be tied to an attempted coup in Montenegro.Other men with similar passport numbers identified by the St Petersburg-based Fontanka news site listed their address as Khoroshevskoye Shosse 76 B, the Moscow headquarters of the Main Directorate. Their travel records could be tied to recent diplomatic incidents in Europe and, in at least one case, matched the details of a foreign trip taken by President Vladimir Putin, Fontanka said.
ITALY
Artist hit with painting
A man has hit performance artist Marina Abramovic on the head with a painting at a Florence museum. Palazzo Strozzi director Arturo Galansino tweeted that Abramovic was unhurt in the attack on Sunday in the courtyard of the palazzo, which is hosting a retrospective about her. Media said the wood-framed painting is a portrait of Abramovic done by the attacker. Galansino said Abramovic, who uses her body as an art medium, wanted to ask the man why he did it.
UNITED KINGDOM
Key ring sets off alarm
A man, who on Sunday sparked an alert at the visitors’ entrance to Buckingham Palace when he was arrested for being in possession of a stun gun, just had a key ring, the Metropolitan Police said. The 38-year-old tourist from the Netherlands was detained at the palace at lunchtime after he was found with a “Taser-type device,” but was released without charge a few hours later. “Officers were satisfied that his possession of the device — which was low-powered and part of a key ring — was a genuine error on his part, and that he posed no threat,” police said.
INDIA
Injured sailor rescued
A French ship yesterday rescued an injured navy commander in the southern Indian Ocean during a round-the-world solo Golden Globe Race, officials said. Minister of Defense Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted that it was “a sense of relief to know that naval officer” Abhilash Tomy, 39, was “rescued by the French fishing vessel. He’s conscious and doing okay.” She said the ship would shift Tomy to a nearby island yesterday evening and that later an Indian navy frigate would take him to Mauritius for medical attention. Australian officials earlier said the French fisheries patrol boat Osiris headed 740km to Tomy after his yacht, Thuriya, lost its mast in a storm on Friday in Australia’s search and rescue zone and he said he had suffered severe back injuries.
CHINA
New outbreak of swine fever
Inner Mongolia has reported a new outbreak of African swine fever, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said yesterday, as authorities struggle to contain the highly contagious disease. A slaughterhouse in the capital, Hohhot, reported the outbreak, adding that four pigs were infected with African swine fever and two had died.
INDONESIA
Rescued teen returns home
A teenager has survived about seven weeks adrift at sea after the floating wooden fish trap he was employed to mind slipped its moorings. The parents of 18-year-old Aldi Novel Adilang and the Indonesian Consulate in Osaka, Japan, said he was rescued by a Panamanian-flagged vessel off Guam on Aug. 31 and returned home earlier this month. Adilang was employed as the keeper of a rompong — a wooden fishing raft with a hut on top — moored about 125km off the coast of North Sulawesi.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was