■AUSTRALIA
Politician does U-turn
Former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has reversed his decision to quit politics, saying the government’s shelving of a carbon-trading scheme had changed his mind. Turnbull, who last year lost the leadership of the Liberal Party over his support for the government’s scheme to combat climate change, said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s administration was “the worst in our lifetime.” Rudd’s government last week said it was delaying the carbon emissions trading scheme until at least 2013, after twice failing to get the bill through the upper house of parliament. Turnbull announced on April 6 he would retire from politics at the next election, but the Sun-Herald newspaper said the 55-year-old regretted the decision almost immediately and would now contest this year’s national poll.
■MACAU
41 injured in clashes
Clashes that broke out during a May Day rally injured 41 people, including two journalists and 32 policemen, the government said yesterday. Three people — a member of the public, a protester and a policeman — were hospitalized, it said. Riot police used water cannons and pepper spray in Saturday’s clashes with hundreds of protesters who fought with stones and bottles. The fighting erupted after protesters tried to force their way through barricades to march along a main road where the main casinos and tourist attractions are located.
■BANGLADESH
Border guards convicted
A special court convicted and jailed nine border guards for up to seven years yesterday in connection with last year’s bloody mutiny that left 74 people dead, a state prosecutor said. Scores of senior army officers were killed in the 33-hour uprising. The mutiny swiftly spread to border posts outside Dhaka, with thousands of guards taking up arms against their commanding officers in the worst military rebellion in the country’s history. The nine guards were convicted for joining in the mutiny and threatening their officers. “Out of the nine, one was jailed the maximum seven years and the rest between two and six years,” State prosecutor Mosharraf Hossain said. Nearly 1,000 guards facing more serious charges, including murder and arson, will be tried separately in civilian courts, where they could face the death penalty.
■JAPAN
PM apologizes for pollution
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama apologized to people suffering from a rare neurological disorder linked to eating fish contaminated with mercury dumped from a chemical plant as he attended a memorial service on Saturday for victims of the disease. “I fully recognize the government’s failure to prevent industrial pollution and contain the damage of Minamata Disease and once again offer my sincere apology,” said Hatoyama, the first national leader to attend the annual memorial. He vowed to quickly provide support to patients, many of them elderly.
■INDIA
IAEA investigating incident
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Saturday it was seeking more specifics about a fatal Indian radiation incident and offered help to authorities. Local police said on Thursday that a scrap dealer who dismantled a machine once used by a Delhi University chemistry class died after being among workers who sawed it open. Seven others were treated for radiation exposure. The case has raised fears about the unregulated disposal of hazardous material in India.
■DENMARK
Tourists left underwhelmed
Tourists trekking to Copenhagen hoping to see the iconic statue of The Little Mermaid were left considerably underwhelmed on Saturday after being confronted by a still image on a giant video screen. The installation allows tourists to view live footage of the sculpture from her temporary new home, the Danish pavilion at Shanghai’s World Expo, but the first visitors were not at all happy at what they saw. “The screen is funny. The place looks like a memorial for The Little Mermaid, like she had died,” Floor Vos of the Netherlands said. “Its a lousy picture. It’s a technical fiasco,” Anna Maja of the US added. Others were taken aback as they were not even aware of the new arrangement. “I’m really surprised that she is not here and to only find a screen,” Jurgen Meyer from Germany said.
■RUSSIA
Cargo ship docks at ISS
A cargo spaceship docked at the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday, authorities said, three days after launching from Kazakhstan with supplies that included sweets and chocolate. The Progress M-05M docked manually after the automatic systems did not work, a Russian Mission Control Center spokesman said in a report by the Interfax news agency. The space craft had carried about 2.6 tonnes of freight, including water, food, medicines, fuel and “psychological support” that included sweets, caramels and chocolates for the station’s international crew. It launched on Wednesday from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan. Three Russian cosmonauts, two US astronauts and a Japanese crewmember currently occupy the orbiting science laboratory.
■SOMALIA
Blast kills at least 25
Two explosions rocked a mosque in Mogadishu on Saturday, killing at least 25 people and leaving scores injured, officials said, in the deadliest blast in five months. “The collected bodies I counted numbered 25,” said Ali Muse, the head of Mogadishu’s ambulance service. He had earlier put the death toll at about six, but explained that many bodies were removed by family members before he arrived on the scene. The blasts, whose cause is still unknown, went off in the crowded Bakara market area, an Islamist stronghold, just as midday prayers finished at a mosque.
■RUSSIA
Racist crime deaths fall
The number of deaths from racist crime fell by half in the first four months of this year compared with last year, a watchdog said on Saturday. SOVA, a non-governmental group tracking racist violence in the country, said in a report that 15 people were killed and 103 injured nationwide in January to last month. Thirty people were killed and 149 injured in the first four months of last year, it said. Russian nationalists are often behind the attacks and their victims are usually darker-skinned migrants from former Soviet countries.
■VATICAN CITY
Legionaries accept decision
The scandal-plagued Legionaries of Christ said it has accepted the pope’s decision to appoint a personal delegate to lead and reform the order following revelations that its founder sexually abused seminarians and fathered at least one child. In a statement posted on its Web site late on Saturday, the Legionaries said its members “embrace his provisions with faith and obedience.” The statement was issued after the Vatican announced a crackdown on the order, saying a papal envoy would take over and reform it.
■IRAQ
Bomb attack targets buses
A double bomb attack targeting buses carrying Christian students and university workers near Mosul in northern Iraq killed a shopkeeper and wounded 80 other people yesterday, police said. The attack, comprising a car bomb and an improvised explosive device, took place on a highway around 3km east of Mosul at around 8am. The victims were travelling from Hamdaniyah, a Christian area, to the University of Mosul.
■CUBA
Thousands march in Havana
Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Havana on Saturday in annual May Day celebrations that the government said prove the island supports its communist system even amid mounting international criticism over human rights. The turnout has long been massive for International Workers’ Day, but this year officials assigned the event special meaning, saying it was Cuba’s response to Washington, the EU and international journalists who have conspired to tarnish its reputation after the February death of a jailed dissident hunger striker and a protest by another opposition activist who has refused food for weeks. Some marchers sang, others waved cardboard signs declaring “We are the people of Fidel and Raul” or decrying the US. Pro-government crowds dispatched in well-organized shifts also blocked a small, weekly march by a women’s group supporting political prisoners for three weeks running in Havana.
■BRAZIL
Landowner gets 30 years
A landowner convicted in the 2005 murder of US nun Dorothy Stang, an advocate for landless peasants and the environment, was sentenced on Saturday to 30 years in prison by a court in Belem. Regivaldo Galvao, 44, was the fifth person to be sentenced for the killing of Stang, 73, who was shot to death after meeting with landless peasants on an ecological project. Galvao received the maximum sentenced allowed for aggravated homicide after a 15 hour trial, prosecutor Edson Cardoso de Souza said.
■UNITED STATES
Heavy rains leave 5 dead
At least five people died and hundreds were being evacuated on Saturday as heavy rains pounded Tennessee, causing widespread flooding. The forecast called for more rain through the weekend. Hundreds of homes had been evacuated and shelters were being opened across the state for people stranded due to flooded roads. The southwestern part of the state was extremely hard hit, with several Memphis-area streets declared impassable. Memphis received 25cm or more of rain during the day and officials were warning that up to 20cm more could fall through yesterday.
■UNITED STATES
Pole defends Sudoku title
The defending champ in the World Sudoku Championships has retained his title and Germany has taken the team title. Jan Mrozowski of Poland was among the 120 players from 32 countries in this year’s competition. The 23-year-old defended his title by solving 10 puzzles in a playoff round in a time of 54 minutes 4 seconds. Germany had the highest score in the team division with 7,904 points. The two-day competition that ended Saturday in Philadelphia marked the first time the event has been held in the US.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
INSTABILITY: If Hezbollah do not respond to Israel’s killing of their leader then it must be assumed that they simply can not, an Middle Eastern analyst said Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said. Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years. His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since
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