■AUSTRALIA
Rudd’s popularity falls
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday blamed a sharp fall in his popularity on last week’s budget, which racked up a record A$58 billion (US$44 billion) deficit. In a survey that Rudd’s political rivals said showed his long honeymoon with voters was ending, the center-left Labor leader’s personal approval rating was 64 percent, down 10 points on the previous reading in March. The poll, published in Fairfax newspapers, also showed the conservative opposition turning in its best result since being ousted in November 2007 elections. The conservatives won the support of 43 percent of voters polled, against 44 percent for Labor.
■VIETNAM
Web site shuts down
Vietnam has shut down a Web site it ran jointly with China, officials said yesterday, as diplomatic tensions escalated over islands claimed by both countries. The two sides created the Web site in 2006 amid great fanfare in order to promote bilateral trade, but it became embroiled in their dispute over the Paracel islands in the South China Sea, over which both countries claim sovereignty. The dispute over the Web site began when China posted an article blasting Vietnam’s claim to the Paracels. The article was posted by the Chinese Ministry of Trade, which ran the site with Vietnam’s trade ministry. The episode has aroused nationalist passions in Vietnam.
■SOUTH KOREA
Truckers, activists detained
More than 300 truckers and union activists were still being held for questioning yesterday about a weekend protest that left more than 150 people injured, police said. Police detained 457 people on Saturday after the clash in the central city of Daejeon involving about 6,000 truckers and members of the militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. Of them, 123 have been released, while 334 are still being questioned, said Ahn Jong-koo, a police spokesman in Daejeon. “The protesters hurled rocks or wielded bamboo staves, injuring 104 policemen and damaging 99 police vehicles,” Ahn said. Newspapers said the truckers displayed anti-government slogans and streamers mourning the death of Park Jong-tae, a union leader who committed suicide in Daejeon on May 3.
■PHILIPPINES
Severed head found
Philippine police recovered the severed head of a farm owner kidnapped by Muslim militants and authorities said yesterday he was likely beheaded because his family failed to pay a ransom. Doroteo Gonzales, 61, was snatched by gunmen on April 25 from his house in Zamboanga city and brought to nearby Basilan island, where al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels are holding at least five other people in a surge of ransom kidnappings. At least three gunmen believed to be involved in Gonzales’ abduction have been arrested, regional military spokesman Captain Neil Estrella said, without elaborating. Police found Gonzales’ severed head in Basilan’s Akbar town on Sunday, said Chief Inspector Rolando Democrito.
■NEPAL
Maoists to block vote
Former Maoist rebels announced yesterday they would block a parliament vote to elect a new prime minister. Narayan Kaji Shrestha, deputy leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), said the party would not allow parliament to function unless their demands are met. The Maoists want the president to sack the army chief.
■RUSSIA
Obese woman gives birth
Doctors in Moscow are congratulating themselves on the birth of a baby to a woman whose severe obesity would normally preclude conception, a newspaper reported yesterday. The Komsomolskaya Pravda said the birth was personally overseen by Moscow’s chief gynecologist because of the weight of the 34-year-old first-time Mum: 250kg, or — as the newspaper helpfully put it — “a good quarter of a tonne!”
■FRANCE
German man arrested
A German man has been taken into custody after suspicions arose that he fabricated a story about being attacked by a knife-wielding man shortly after his wife disappeared in an attempt to cover up her suicide, law enforcement officials said. The man may have been trying to conceal the fact that his wife had earlier committed suicide in Germany, media reported.
■CHAD
Air force bombs Sudan
Authorities said the air force had completed raids on “mercenaries” inside Sudan on Sunday, announcing its aircraft had destroyed seven groups of fighters, while ground forces had captured 100 prisoners on the border. Tensions between the two oil-producing neighbors escalated over the weekend after Sudan said its neighbor had launched a series of bombing raids on its territory on Friday, calling the move an “act of war.” Authorities said they were justified in sending armed forces into Sudan because of the support Khartoum provided ahead of and after a failed attack by rebels on the army last week.
■JAPAN
Nuclear fuel arrives
An armed vessel with a load of recycled nuclear fuel from France arrived amid heavy security yesterday at a port where it was greeted by dozens of protesters. The Pacific Heron — carrying a British police team to head off possible hijackers on its secretive two-month voyage — delivered a load of mixed-oxide or MOX fuel, a blend of plutonium and reprocessed uranium. Several dozen anti-nuclear activists srallied at a pier of the Omaezaki fishing port as the ship docked under heavy police guard and cranes unloaded metal containers of the nuclear fuel. Environmental group Greenpeace has called the cargo, which left France in March via a secret route, “the largest shipment of plutonium in history,” saying the 1.8 tonnes would be enough to make 225 nuclear weapons. A protester, Lutheran Church pastor Shingo Naito, said he was concerned Japan may be stacking up plutonium for military use.
■LITHUANIA
Female president elected
The EU’s budget chief will become the country’s first woman president following a landslide victory in a vote overshadowed by the Baltic country’s ailing economy, preliminary results showed yesterday. With all ballots counted, Dalia Grybauskaite amassed 69 percent of the vote, the election commission announced.
■IRAQ
Election set for January
The next general election will be held on Jan. 30. The deputy speaker of the parliament says the legislature has received a ruling from the country’s Federal Court setting the date, which is about a month later than had been expected. Khalid al-Attiyah says the court’s ruling was in response to a request by the 275-member parliament.
■MEXICO
Five arrested for drug link
Three police officers and two other men were arrested on suspicion of working for a drug cartel in the central part of the country, federal authorities said on Sunday. A former state security chief and the police chief of a state capital were detained for questioning. Investigators uncovered the alleged police corruption ring after the arrest earlier this month of 14 alleged members of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel in Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos state, the Public Safety Department said in a statement.
■ARGENTINA
Anti-Semites arrested
Police arrested at least five people after anti-Semitic demonstrators clashed on Sunday with Jews marking the 61st anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel, police said. During the Jewish group’s ceremony, demonstrators waving anti-Semitic signs stepped in and violence broke out and five people were arrested after the scuffle, authorities said. An anti-discrimination police unit had to escort Israeli Ambassador Daniel Gazit away from the fracas.
■UNITED STATES
Exercise at ‘Ground Zero’
Hundreds of firefighters and police swarmed Ground Zero on Sunday, the site where the World Trade Center once stood, in the largest security exercise since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. As part of an elaborate dress rehearsal for a possible future terror strike, rescue workers exploded simulated bombs in a commuter train tunnel linking Manhattan to New Jersey burrowed beneath the Hudson River. “Full-scale exercises like today’s give us an opportunity to practice how to integrate the vast response resources available in New York City and establish a command structure under the Citywide Incident Management System,” said Joseph Bruno, commissioner at the city’s Office of Emergency Management.
■UNITED STATES
Quake hits LA region
A moderate earthquake jolted the Los Angeles region late on Sunday, shattering glass, setting off alarms and fraying nerves. There were no reports of any major injuries or damage. The magnitude-4.7 quake hit at 8:39pm, about 16km southwest of downtown Los Angeles and 5km east of Los Angeles International Airport, a preliminary report by the US Geological Survey said.
■UNITED STATES
Bear the dog returns
A Chicago police dog named Bear who is apparently a scaredy cat when it comes to thunder is back home after going missing during a storm. Authorities said Bear, who went missing several days ago, was found safe, but dirty, on Sunday morning by a man walking to a hardware store. The man says he saw the dog at a cemetery and flagged down Officer Ann Jaros, who said Bear recognized her squad car and “jumped right in.” A microchip in the dog’s neck confirmed it was Bear.
■UNITED STATES
Student heckled over kilt
The principal of a Utah middle school has been asked to apologize for forcing a kilt-wearing Scottish-American student to change his clothes. Weber School District spokesman Nate Taggart said Craig Jessop had been asked to extend an apology to 14-year-old student Gavin McFarland of Hooper after the school official’s comments on Wednesday. Gavin said he wore the kilt twice in the past two weeks to Rocky Mountain Junior High as a prop for an art project, the Standard-Examiner reported.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
‘KAMPAI’: It is said that people in Japan began brewing rice about 2,000 years ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol Traditional Japanese knowledge and skills used in the production of sake and shochu distilled spirits were approved on Wednesday for addition to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a committee of the UN cultural body said It is believed people in the archipelago began brewing rice in a simple way about two millennia ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol. By about 1000 AD, the imperial palace had a department to supervise the manufacturing of sake and its use in rituals, the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association said. The multi-staged brewing techniques still used today are
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