INDONESIA
Aftershocks rock Malukus
The Maluku Islands yesterday were hit by scores of aftershocks after an earthquake on Sunday killed at least two people. Rescue teams were struggling to reach parts of the area hit by the magnitude 7.2 quake, due to its remote location, warning that the death toll could rise. The quake hit at a shallow depth of 10km on the southern part of Halmahera in the North Malukus. About 2,000 people had been displaced, while at least 58 houses had been damaged, Indonesian National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo told reporters in Jakarta. As of yesterday afternoon, 66 aftershocks had been recorded, he said.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Security being boosted
Authorities have boosted security to prevent a further escalation of tribal violence, after at least 24 people were killed last week in Hela Province, officials said yesterday. The killings of women and children marked a deadly departure from a cycle of killing in which the vulnerable are usually off limits. Police Minister Bryan Kramer said immediate intervention was needed in Hela to prevent the latest bout of violence becoming the new norm. He said the massacre of women and children was “the worst pay back killing in our country’s history.” A defence force platoon and a mobile police squad had been stationed at a local primary school “to provide around the clock security, to prevent any further escalation of violence,” and authorities would use “drone technology and satellite surveillance” to track down the perpetrators, he added.
DENMARK
Humanitarian aid drying up
A leading advocacy group for refugees yesterday that with half of the year gone, humanitarian organizations have received only 27 percent of the money needed to provide relief to people affected by crises worldwide this year. Norwegian Refugee Council secretary-general Jan Egeland said “the current lack of funding is alarming.” Egeland said a total of US$26 billion is required this year to provide relief for about 94 million people in need. However, donor countries have contributed only US$7 billion, or US$2 billion less than for the same period last year, he said, citing the UN’s financial tracking service. “Let’s not be fooled into believing that the amount needed is too high or the job too difficult. It is a question of priorities,” Egeland said. The world’s total military expenditure last year increased to “a whopping $1.8 trillion,” citing figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. “The cost of closing the humanitarian funding gap and providing people with basic support equals to just about 1 percent of this,” he said.
AUSTRALIA
Student’s body found
The body of a man, believed to be the missing Indian student Poshik Sharma, was found yesterday morning in regional Victoria. Sharma, 21, was reported missing after he left the Duck Inn about 4:30pm on Thursday. Police said his death was not being treated as suspicious. Meanwhile, New South Wales police announced that human bones discovered last month near Port Macquarie belonged to Erwan Ferrieux, a 21-year-old French national who went missing along with his British friend Hugo Palmer in February. “We believe from the DNA comparisons that it belongs to Erwan Ferrieux,” Superintendent Paul Fehon said. Another human bone was discovered in the same area on Sunday, but police said it was too early to say whether it belonged to either Ferrieux or Palmer.
GUATEMALA
Court blocks border meeting
The Constitutional Court late on Sunday granted an injunction blocking President Jimmy Morales from signing a migration deal with the US that would oblige it to offer asylum to migrants heading to the US border. Morales, who was under pressure at home not to seal the deal, earlier on Sunday called off White House talks with US President Donald Trump with just a day to spare, his office announced. The meeting scheduled for yesterday in Washington was pushed back due to “speculation” about the signing of a possible deal and to await the decision of the court on legal actions filed over it, the government said in a statement. The court said any such agreement should first be approved by Congress.
UNITED KINGDOM
May boogies to ABBA
Prime Minister Theresa May boogied away one of her last weekends as prime minister, showing off some of her famously awkward dance moves to ABBA hits such as Dancing Queen and Mamma Mia at a festival. In a video clip, she is shown dancing at the Henley Festival as her husband and other men in black tie swing their arms to the tunes.
FRANCE
Hundreds arrested in unrest
A total of 282 people were arrested on Sunday evening after unrest following the Algerian soccer team’s qualification for the final of the Africa Cup of Nations, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. Riotous celebrations erupted across the nation after Algeria beat Nigeria 2-1 in the semi-final. Unruly scenes erupted in Paris, Marseille and Lyon. Fifty people were arrested in Paris and there were incidents between soccer fans and police on the Champs-Elysees avenue. Dozens of cars were torched overnight in Lyon. Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner yesterday congratulated police and firefighters for their “speedy reaction and professionalism which contained the violence and to the perpetrators” being apprehended.
UNITED STATES
Groups protest telescope
Native Hawaiian groups vowed to protect Hawaii’s tallest mountain, Mauna Kea, from an attempt to resume construction yesterday of a giant telescope. The road to the summit was to be closed yesterday morning as trucks carrying construction equipment start to make their way to the peak. The planned building site is considered sacred by some Native Hawaiians. State officials said anyone breaking the law would be arrested. Protests in 2015 ended in arrests and crews pulling back. However, Hawaii’s Supreme Court has ruled the construction is legal, permits are in place and the state has given the company behind the telescope a green light to resume its efforts.
FRANCE
Chess player suspended
The International Chess Federation on Friday said it has suspended a player at a tournament after the man was “caught red-handed using his phone during a game.” The federation said on Twitter that all the evidence in the case of Igors Rausis had been sent to its ethics committee and that it was “determined to fight cheating in chess.” Rausis is a 58-year-old Latvian-Czech player who won the grandmaster title in 1992 and has over the years represented Latvia, Bangladesh and the Czech Republic. Federation director-general Emil Sutovsky wrote on Facebook that Rausis had long been under suspicion for cheating and that catching him was “merely the first shot” in a years-long battle against cheating.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema