■ FIJI
Regime renews poll vow
The government pledged again yesterday to hold “free and fair” democratic elections in March next year — after months of serious doubt among foreign governments and observers. Australia, New Zealand, the US and the EU have called on the regime to honor its commitment to hold elections by no later than the end of March. Fijian Foreign Minister Ratu Epeli Nailatikau made the commitment when he spoke yesterday to Melanesian Spearhead Group foreign ministers from Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands in Port Vila.
■ INDIA
Gas leak fells over 100
About a hundred people were taken to hospital after inhaling chlorine leaking at the site of carmaker Tata Motors in east India, an official said yesterday. The gas leaked from an abandoned chlorine tank at a water treatment plant at the company township in Jamshedpur in eastern Jharkhand state, Deputy Commissioner Ravindra Agarwal said. Most of the affected people were sent home after being given first aid late on Tuesday, but about 20 were still undergoing treatment, the official said. The gas leak had been plugged, Tata Motors said in a statement.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Police detain protesters
Police detained more than 100 protesters yesterday after they took part in a nighttime rally against resuming beef imports from the US. It was the largest number taken into custody so far amid weeks of demonstrations that have stymied the government’s plan to end restrictions on imports of US beef amid fears of mad cow disease. A total of 113 people were apprehended and were being questioned, a Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency officer said on condition of anonymity.
■ MALAYSIA
Selangor rejects PM's mantra
Selangor has barred mosques and other Islamic institutes from promoting Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s concept of Islam because it distorts religious precepts, an official said yesterday. The move by Selangor is a big slap to Abdullah, a Muslim scholar who introduced the phrase “Islam Hadhari,” or “civilizational Islam,” after he took power in 2003 to explain the religious teachings that guided his administration. The concept, which seeks to promote progressive Islam, includes principles such as mastery of knowledge and economic development. But the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party accuses Abdullah of exploiting vague terms to make the government seem more progressive to boost its popularity among the country’s Muslim majority. It says Islam Hadhari is losing sight of spiritualism and giving an unbalanced perspective of Islam in its quest for economic development at all costs.
■ AUSTRALIA
Council vote called racist
The Forum on Australia’s Islamic Relations said a Sydney council’s refusal to allow an Islamic school to be set up in its area was a “victory for racism.” Camden Council unanimously rejected the application for a 1,200-pupil school on Tuesday night, prompting cheers from hundreds of residents who attended the meeting. The council said the decision was based on planning issues, but the proposal sparked ugly protests, including two pigs’ heads impaled on spikes at the school site last November. Resident Kate McCulloch said Muslims were not welcome in the area. “We just don’t want Muslim people in Camden,” she said. “We don’t want them not only here, we don’t want them in Australia.”
■ PHILIPPINES
Record drug cache seized
Police have seized more than 700kg of high-grade methamphetamines worth nearly US$100 million in what is believed to be the country’s biggest drugs haul, officials said yesterday. Errol Pan, regional police chief, said the drugs were discovered on Tuesday after two boxes with about 10kg of the drug were found floating in a river near Subic. The boxes were traced to a company renting warehouses in the Subic area. A van inside one of the warehouses had 66 similar boxes filled with the drug. Another warehouse was found to contain 88kg of the drug. The haul was almost double the amount of methamphetamines seized last year.
■ INDONESIA
'Mud volcano' collapsing
A “mud volcano” that has oozed sludge for two years is collapsing under its own weight, worsening an environmental disaster that has displaced thousands, a study said yesterday. Sudden collapses of up to 3m have been recorded at the center of the volcano in East Java, the study by Durham University and the Bandung Institute of Technology found. “Such sudden collapses could be the beginning of a caldera — a large basin-shaped volcanic depression,” the institute said in a statement, adding that the caldera could be as much as 146m deep.
■ AUSTRALIA
Murdoch's mom wins fight
News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch’s 99-year-old mom beat tax authorities in court yesterday over a tax bill on an A$85 million (US$81 million) payment. Dame Elisabeth Murdoch appealed an order to pay the tax following a 1994 reorganization of family trusts. Three Federal Court judges unanimously upheld her appeal and agreed that she owed no tax.
■ CANADA
Skydiver suffers setback
A French skydiver’s hope to set a new free-fall record suffered a major setback on Tuesday when his ride to the sky left without him. The helium balloon Michel Fournier, a former army paratrooper, was going to use to soar to the stratosphere detached from the capsule he was going to use to jump from 40,000m. It happened after the balloon was inflated on the ground at the airport in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. The balloon drifted away into the sky without the capsule. The launch team believes static electricity may have caused a small shock which set off one of five charges designed to release the capsule from the balloon after the jump. Fournier said he would bring two balloons next time. He hoped to break the record for the fastest and longest free fall, the highest parachute jump and the highest balloon flight.
■ CANADA
Couple offers baby online
A couple put their baby girl up for sale for US$10,000 over the Internet, police said on Tuesday. Social workers seized the seven-day-old baby in an apartment in Vancouver while the parents, who have a history of drug problems, are under investigation for human trafficking, police Constable Tim Fanning said. The advertisement was posted on Craigslist.com, a free and popular classified ads Web site. The ad read “Must have!!!!!!” It described the child as seven days old, “very healthy and very cute. Can’t afford and unexpected, looking for a good home, please call ASAP.” The parents were arrested.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Sub collides with rocks
A nuclear-powered submarine collided with rocks beneath the surface of the Red Sea, damaging its sonar, the military said late on Tuesday. The HMS Superb hit an undersea mountain, the Ministry of Defense said. There were no casualties and the ship has now safely surfaced. The vessel remains watertight and its nuclear reactor was “completely unaffected,” the ministry said. It refused to say what the Superb was doing in the area.
■ AUSTRIA
Doctors try to revive victim
Doctors started attempts to revive the 19-year-old daughter of Josef Fritzl from her artificially induced coma, the hospital treating her said on Tuesday. Kerstin Fritzl, the offspring of Josef’s incestuous relationship with his daughter Elisabeth, spent her entire life imprisoned in the family cellar in Amstetten, 100km west of Vienna. It was only when she was rushed to hospital unconscious on April 19 that Fritzl’s horrific catalog of incest and imprisonment came to light. Kerstin was placed in a coma in intensive care by doctors to allow her vital functions to stabilize. Kerstin is the eldest of seven children born to incest victim Elisabeth Fritzl, now 42, during the 24 years she was sexually abused and imprisoned in a windowless underground cell by her father, Josef.
■ GERMANY
Crocodile on the loose
Hildesheim City spokesman Horst Richter said an expert is searching for a crocodile spotted in a backwater of the Innerste River. Two city employees got a five-minute glimpse of the reptile on Monday, he said, before the roughly 80cm animal disappeared into the brush. It was not immediately clear whether the animal was a crocodile, an alligator or a caiman. The reptile may have been purchased as a pet and released into the river. Richter says the city has recruited an animal control expert to search for the beast. He says the backwater it was seen in is not open for swimming.
■ COLOMBIA
Bounty for rebel's body
Authorities are offering up to US$2.7 million as a bounty for the body of the founder and chief commander of the FARC rebels, who died after 40 years fighting the state, a top army official said on Tuesday. FARC chief Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda died of a heart attack in March four decades after he formed the FARC, the rebels said on Sunday. “Without a doubt this has become a objective for us,” Army chief General Mario Montoya said. “It will be important for us to carry out identification of this body.”
■ MEXICO
Thief swallows evidence
A 25-year-old man bit off more than he could chew when he allegedly stole a gold bracelet from an eight-year-old girl and then swallowed the evidence, police in northern Mexico said on Tuesday. Jose Rigoberto Cruz Salas was being administered laxatives to recover the evidence at a jail in a suburb of Monterrey, said state police officials, who declined to be named. Cruz Salas admitted to the Sunday theft, said police, who arrested him on Monday. Police ordered an X-ray of his stomach, which revealed the stolen jewelry. He faces robbery charges, punishable by a fine or a jail term of six months to 15 years — depending on the bracelet’s value.
■ UNITED STATES
Give back shoes: police
Tired of losing what he says was about US$1,000 in merchandise a month in thefts, Gabe Fidanque started telling shoplifters he caught that they had two choices: Give him one of their shoes or he would call the police. A handful gave up a shoe. But police in Durango, Colorado, told Fidanque on Friday to stop the practice or risk facing charges of felony robbery. Shoplifting, in contrast, is a misdemeanor.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province
Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on Friday failed to attend in person an initial hearing at the International Criminal Court (ICC) as he faces crimes against humanity charges over his deadly crackdown on narcotics. The 79-year-old, the first ex-Asian head of state charged by the ICC, followed by video during a short hearing to inform him of the crimes he is alleged to have committed, as well as his rights as a defendant. Sounding frail and wearing a blue suit and tie, he spoke briefly to confirm his name and date of birth. Presiding Judge Iulia Motoc allowed him to
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