■SOUTH PACIFIC
Islands brace for cyclone
Tsunami survivors in Samoa and Tonga huddled in their makeshift shelters over the weekend as they braced for a second disaster in five months with the approach of Cyclone Rene. The cyclone left one dead, uprooted trees and caused landslides and flooding as it swept across American Samoa on Saturday, gathering intensity as it continued across the South Pacific. The islands are still recovering from the tsunamis that killed at least 118 people last September and thousands are still living in tents and other improvised lodgings after their homes were destroyed. The Fiji Meteorological Service warned that Rene, a category two storm, was likely to be upgraded to category three on a five-point scale as it tracks south.
■UNITED KINGDOM
India inks nuclear deal
London has signed an agreement on nuclear energy cooperation with India, paving the way for an international conference, the government said on Saturday. The declaration, signed in New Delhi, will help British companies collaborate with Indian partners in civil nuclear technology and help both countries achieve energy security and low carbon growth, business minister Pat McFadden said in a telephone call. The agreement will result in India attending a Nuclear New Build Conference in London next month, along with nuclear business and political leaders from 15 countries.
■CHINA
Tainted products destroyed
The government assured consumers most of the tainted milk products that resurfaced in recent months have been destroyed, saying none had made it to store shelves or been exported. The Health Ministry’s statement on Saturday came after revelations that milk powder tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, which was supposed to have been destroyed after a 2008 scandal, had reappeared around the country. “The vast majority of dairy products were recalled and destroyed, did not enter the consumer market, none was exported,” the ministry said. The statement reiterated the order to destroy all tainted milk supplies and vowed to crack down on anyone involved in criminal acts.
■INDONESIA
Flooding kills two
Heavy rains and rising rivers have flooded hundreds of houses in Jakarta, killing at least two people. The private el-Shinta radio says a 56-year-old man was found dead on Saturday afternoon in the Bukit Duri neighborhood, where floodwaters reached as high as 2m. The Antara news agency says another person died in the hilly region of Cisarua, south of the capital. More than 1,000 people have been forced to flee their homes for emergency shelters.
■UNITED STATES
Condoms for Valentines
An environmental group that fights to protect endangered species began distributing 100,000 free condoms across the country yesterday. The Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson says the Valentine’s Day promotion was meant to call attention to the impact of human overpopulation on endangered species. The group will hand out six different condom packages with original artwork in bars, supermarkets, schools, concerts, parties, and other public events. Slogans on the packages include “Wrap with care, save the polar bear,” and “Wear a condom now, save the spotted owl.” The center’s Randy Serraglio says human overpopulation is destroying wildlife habitat at an unprecedented rate.
■HAITI
US reduces troop numbers
The US military has pulled thousands of its troops from the quake-hit country because aid operations have improved, a general said on Saturday, as relief workers raced to boost conditions at squalid camps said. There were growing calls to speed up efforts to provide tarps and tents ahead of the rainy season, which threatens to bring more misery to the estimated 1.2 million left homeless by the massive earthquake a month ago. US General Douglas Fraser said troop numbers were now down to 13,000 after a post-earthquake high of more than 20,000.
■IVORY COAST
Opposition rejects president
The opposition has declared it will no longer recognize Laurent Gbagbo as president — a move likely to complicate his efforts to form a new government, after he dissolved the old one along with the West African country’s electoral commission. The four-party opposition coalition RHDP on Saturday urged supporters to mobilize against the governing party. RHDP leader Djedje Madi said the president’s dismissal of the government and election board on Friday was “antidemocratic and anticonstitutional,” and tantamount to “a coup d’etat.”
■FRANCE
Art piece to be put back
The culture minister on Saturday called on the country’s top art college to hang a work by a Chinese artist back on its facade, after she complained it had been censored for political reasons. A ministerial statement said Minister of Culture and Communication Frederic Mitterrand had asked the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts to reinstall “as quickly as possible” the work by Ko Siu Lan that deformed a slogan of President Nicolas Sarkozy. The huge black banners daubed with the words “earn — less — work — more” in white were hung up on Wednesday as part of an exhibition organized by the school in central Paris, but ordered removed within hours by college authorities.
■UNITED STATES
Professor donates handcuffs
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr says he donated the handcuffs used on him during his arrest last year outside his home to the Smithsonian Institution’s black history museum. Gates said in yesterday’s edition of the New York Times Magazine that he donated the handcuffs to the new National Museum of African American History and Culture. Gates’ arrest last July by police investigating a report of a possible break-in at his home near Harvard University sparked a national debate over racial profiling.
■UNITED STATES
Ohio man sets hugs record
A 51-year-old Ohio man has embraced the Valentine’s Day spirit faster than anyone before, giving 7,777 hugs in 24 hours for a new world record. Jeff Ondash, who sought the squeezes under the costumed alter ego Teddy McHuggin, broke the record on Saturday night outside the Paris Las Vegas hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Ondash also holds the one-hour hugs record with 1,205.
■CHILE
Grandma pushers arrested
Elderly pensioners struggling to make ends meet are being lured by the narcotics trade, police said on Saturday. The average age of drug dealers has soared in the country, with police saying they had arrested 16 people this year, mostly women aged between 60 and 80 years. Among them were a pair of septuagenarians with a 2kg stash of cocaine.
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
‘DOWNSIZE’: The Trump administration has initiated sweeping cuts to US government-funded media outlets in a move critics said could undermine the US’ global influence US President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday began making deep cuts to Voice of America (VOA) and other government-run, pro-democracy programming, with the organization’s director saying all VOA employees have been put on leave. On Friday night, shortly after the US Congress passed its latest funding bill, Trump directed his administration to reduce the functions of several agencies to the minimum required by law. That included the US Agency for Global Media, which houses Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Asia and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. On Saturday morning, Kari Lake, a former Arizona gubernatorial and US
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
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