AUSTRALIA
Cattle farmers under probe
Two cattle stations could be facing animal cruelty charges after 500 cattle were reportedly found dead on a station in the Pilbara, one month after 1,000 cattle died at Noonkanbah station in the Kimberley. Western Australia Minister of Agriculture Alannah MacTiernan has confirmed that the state’s Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development is investigating the deaths at an unnamed Pilbara station, with a view to possible charges under the Animal Welfare Act. “This has been a particularly hot and dry season,” MacTiernan said. “Clearly cattle cannot be left to just fend for themselves.”
PAKISTAN
Protests menace Bibi acquital
Religious hardliners yesterday called for protests as Asia Bibi, the Christian woman at the center of a years-long blasphemy row, was expected to leave the nation, having cleared a last legal hurdle. Although no protesters had yet gathered, a heavy contingent of police could be seen at a junction connecting Islamabad with Rawalpindi, where a sit-in in 2017 paralyzed the capital. Calls for demonstrations came hours after the Supreme Court upheld its earlier decision to acquit Bibi. “We cannot compromise on the honor of the Prophet,” the Tehreek-e-Labaik party, the group that has led the protests, said in a statement on Tuesday, calling on its supporters to demonstrate.
SOUTH KOREA
Wartime sex slave mourned
Hundreds of people are mourning the death of a former sex slave for the Japanese military during World War II by demanding reparations from Tokyo over wartime atrocities. Kim Bok-dong had been a vocal protest leader at the weekly rallies held every Wednesday in Seoul for nearly 30 years. She died on Monday following a battle with cancer. She was 92. Kim was one of the first victims to speak out and break decades of silence over Japan’s wartime sexual slavery that experts say forced thousands of Asian women into military brothels. Of the 239 women who have come forward as victims, only 23 are still alive.
CHINA
Methane emissions rising
Methane emissions from coal mining have continued to rise despite tough legislation and ambitious government targets, a new study based on satellite data said yesterday. “China’s methane regulations have not had a detectable impact on the nation’s methane emissions,” said Scot Miller, the study’s first author and assistant professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The research, which used data gathered by a Japanese satellite that monitors greenhouse gases and looked at measurements from 2010 to 2015, found that emissions continued to grow in line with pre-2010 trends. “We estimate that emissions in 2015 are 50 percent higher than in 2000,” Miller said.
DR CONGO
Ebola kills two soldiers
Two soldiers in an eastern region have died after catching Ebola in an outbreak that has killed hundreds there, army and health sources said on Tuesday. “Two of our soldiers have died from the Ebola virus in Beni. Three others are under observation,” army spokesperson Major Mak Hazukay said. “All measures have been taken to stop the troops from being contaminated.” The deaths of the soldiers brought the total toll to 459 recorded deaths, according to official figures, and highlighted the challenge of controlling the epidemic in the strife-torn east.
UNITED KINGDOM
May supported in new talks
Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday won parliament’s backing to renegotiate her Brexit deal — a major policy reversal that sets up a new standoff with the EU after it ruled out any change. May’s decision to abandon a pact she herself sealed with the 27 EU leaders at a summit last month came as the nation appears on course to crash out of the bloc on March 29. May now faces a formidable challenge convincing Brussels to reopen talks. “It won’t be easy, but in contrast to a fortnight ago, this house has made it clear what it needs to approve the withdrawal agreement,” May said.
UNITED STATES
Subway stairs claim life
A young mother has died after falling down stairs at a New York City subway station while holding her one-year-old daughter. Malaysia Goodson of Stamford, Connecticut, fell down the stairs at a midtown Manhattan station at about 8pm on Monday, police said. Goodson was unconscious when police arrived. She was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Her child was unharmed. Police said it is unknown whether the child was in a stroller during the incident, as initially reported by authorities. The city’s medical examiner is to determine the cause of death.
UNITED STATES
Vandals hit school with oil
A New Mexico high school was forced to delay classes after vandals slipped onto campus and poured vegetable oil throughout the hallways, authorities said. The slick attack at Eunice High School reportedly occurred late on Sunday and forced custodial staff to race on Monday morning to clean up the mess, the Hobbs News-Sun reported. Principal Tracy Davis said that surveillance cameras captured six people wearing black clothing with hoodies and gloves pouring the vegetable oil on floors. No arrests have been made.
VENEZUELA
Russian plane to take gold
Legislator Jose Guerra on Tuesday dropped a bombshell on Twitter: The Russian Boeing 777 that had landed in Caracas on Monday was there to spirit away 18 tonnes of gold from the vaults of the central bank. Asked how he knew this, Guerra provided no evidence. Guerra is a former central bank economist who remains in touch with old colleagues there. A person with direct knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg News that 18 tonnes of gold had been set aside in the central bank for loading. Worth about US$840 million, the gold represents about 20 percent of the nation’s holdings of the metal, the person said. He provided no further information.
UNITED STATES
Drug exec ‘gave lap dance’
A former stripper who became a regional sales director at Insys Therapeutics gave a doctor a lap dance at a Chicago club as the drugmaker pushed the doctor to prescribe its addictive fentanyl spray, a former Insys employee testified on Tuesday. Holly Brown told jurors the incident with her boss, Sunrise Lee, took place after Insys began rewarding the doctor for prescribing its opioid product by paying him to speak at educational events about the drug. After one dinner in mid-2012, Brown said that she, Lee and Madison went to a club, where she witnessed Lee “sitting on his lap, kind of bouncing around... He had his hands sort of inappropriately all over her chest.”
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