■INDIA
Army fires on crowd
Soldiers fired on protesters in Kashmir on Friday, killing two in an angry crowd protesting the troops shooting at people who tried to recover the body of a suspected militant. The man was killed during a skirmish with paramilitary soldiers in Sopore, a town 55km northwest of Srinagar, the capital of Indian Kashmir, said Prabhakar Tripathi, a spokesman for the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force. Three troops were wounded in the gunbattle. Hours later, a mob gathered in Sopore, hurling rocks at soldiers and setting vehicles ablaze, said Farooq Ahmed, a top police officer. They accused the troops of firing on people who had gathered to remove the body of the suspected militant.
■NEW ZEALAND
Rural hamlet for sale
Stressed-out city executives looking to get away from it all have the chance to buy their own rural village in New Zealand, complete with a pub and population of 40. Otira, a hamlet on the rainy west coast of South Island, is on the market for NZ$1 million (US$715,000). Current owners Bill and Christine Hennah bought the rundown village in 1998 after passing through and “feeling sorry for it,” Christchurch-based newspaper the Press reported on Friday. The couple, now in their 60s, say they no longer have the energy to run the hotel. They are asking NZ$350,000 for the hotel or NZ$1 million for the whole lot.
■INDONESIA
Nightclub fire kills 10
Ten people were killed in a fire that raced through a packed nightclub in Surabaya on Friday, including a mother and the baby she apparently gave birth to during the tragedy. An Australian and a Japanese national were also among the dead, said police Lieutenant-Colonel Bahagia Dachi. Some witnesses told officers a spark from a cigarette triggered the blaze. The Redboxx Cafe erupted in flames at 3:30am. as hundreds of people filled the club, some to watch the World Cup. It took firefighters several hours to bring the blaze under control.
■AUSTRALIA
Ex-PM focus of cheeky ads
Businesses wasted no time cashing in on the shock ouster of Kevin Rudd as prime minister, launching a series of cheeky adverts to run alongside stories about the party coup. Budget airline Jetstar took out a half-page newspaper ad with a picture of Rudd and the tagline, “Taking a Break? Sunshine Coast from A$99,” a tongue-in-cheek reference to the former leader’s home town of Nambour. Kleenex declared its paper towels, “The Leader in Cleaning Up Party Spills,” playing on the spill motion which delivered Julia Gillard to power as Australia’s first female prime minister. Chicken restaurant chain Nandos paid tribute to Gillard, exclaiming, “Yes Julia ... Chicks Rule!” in their ad, which went on with the caveat: “You may be PM but WE’RE still Australia’s number one bird.”
■MALAYSIA
Sports betting still illegal
Prime Minister Najib Razak said his government has dropped a proposal to legalize sports betting following protests by groups who fear it will create more social ills. There was uproar after Ascot Sports, a company controlled by influential tycoon Vincent Tan, said last month that it had been granted a license to offer odds for the hugely popular English Premier League season. The government said that it was still reviewing its decision as Muslim groups, opposition leaders and even members of the government coalition opposed the new license.
■UNITED NATIONS
Ban calls for credible polls
UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for “peaceful and credible” presidential elections in Guinea, as the African nation headed for its first democratic vote in half a century today. “The secretary-general stresses the importance of the peaceful conduct of Guinea’s presidential elections,” spokesman Martin Nesirky said on Friday. “He calls on Guinea’s national authorities, all political stakeholders, civil society and the electorate to continue to contribute towards a conducive environment for the holding of peaceful and credible polls that would result in the election of a government that fully reflects the will of Guineans.” There has been concern after clashes between rival parties on Thursday left at least one person dead. Ban “reaffirms the support of the UN to the transitional process and calls upon the country’s partners to continue to accompany Guineans as they strive to restore constitutional order in their country, institute crucial socio-economic reforms and promote respect for human rights,” Nesirky said. More than 4 million Guinean voters have registered to vote today for 24 civilian candidates running in the first free elections since the country’s independence in 1958 and after 52 years of civilian and military dictatorships.
■AUSTRALIA
Bodies taken from crash site
An Australian mining company which lost its entire board in a plane crash in the Congo said yesterday all the bodies had been recovered and transported to Brazzaville for formal identification. All 11 people on board the chartered twin turboprop were killed when it smashed into dense jungle last weekend 30km from the small mining town of Yangadou, near the border with Gabon. Sundance Resources said all the bodies had now been retrieved from the crash site and were flown to Brazzaville with the help of French and Congolese military aircraft. “The Congolese prime minister, seven senior Congolese ministers, the Australian High Commissioner and representatives of Sundance were on hand to pay their respects when the bodies arrived in Brazzaville,” the miner said in a statement yesterday. “They are being held at a secure facility where the formal identification process will commence.”
■ITALY
Mafia boss arrested
Italian officials say a mobster and one of the country’s top 30 most wanted fugitives has been arrested in the south of France. The Interior Ministry said Giuseppe Falsone was arrested on Friday in Marseille. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said in a statement that Falsone had been a fugitive for over a decade and must serve a life sentence. ANSA news agency said Falsone is close to Bernardo Provenzano, a top mobster who was arrested in 2006 after decades on the run. ANSA said Falsone was wanted for Mafia association, murder and drug trafficking.
■KYRGYZSTAN
Referendum to proceed
Kyrgyzstan yesterday lifted a curfew in its violence-torn southern region of Osh to allow a controversial referendum on a new constitution to go ahead, officials said. Kyrgyzstan is going ahead with a constitutional referendum today, despite warnings that the poll could spark a renewal of the violence that killed at least 264 people in inter-ethnic clashes earlier this month. “The inhabitants of Osh had asked the leadership to extend the curfew, but the decision was taken to examine this question according to the situation after the referendum has taken place,” Deputy Interior Minister Baktybek Alymbekov said.
■UNITED STATES
One guilty in UN case
The Justice Department says a man pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday to engaging in an eight-year conspiracy to defraud the UN oil-for-food program and to bribe Iraqi officials. Ousama M. Naaman was an Iraqi agent for a US company, Innospec Inc. The firm pleaded guilty in March to wire fraud and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by offering to bribe officials in the Iraqi Ministry of Oil. Naaman admitted that he paid or promised to pay more than US$3 million to officials of the Iraqi Ministry of Oil and the Trade Bank of Iraq to secure sales of a chemical additive used to refine leaded fuel. A dual citizen of Canada and Lebanon, Naaman is from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
■MEXICO
Hurricanes leave coast
Hurricane Darby moved further away from coastal areas on Friday and was expected to lose more speed over the weekend, the US National Hurricane Center said. Darby grew into a Category 3 hurricane earlier on Friday. It had maximum sustained winds of 185kph and was 425km southwest of the beach resort of Acapulco. The storm was moving west-northwest at 9kph. “A turn toward the west or west-southwest with a decrease in forward speed is expected later tonight or early Saturday,” the Miami-based hurricane center said. Pacific hurricanes can damage tourist resorts along Mexico’s coast, but pose no threat to the country’s oil industry, which is primarily located in the Gulf of Mexico. Farther out in the Pacific, Hurricane Celia weakened to a Category 3. Celia, the first hurricane of the Pacific season, was 1,370km southwest of the tip of Baja California and had maximum sustained winds of 195kph.
■UNITED STATES
NASA mulls postponement
The two final space shuttle missions before the program is phased out will likely be postponed, a NASA spokesperson said on Friday. “It’s not official ye,t but it’s very likely,” media services chief at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Allard Beutel said. “The decision will be officially announced on July 1st,” he said. The space shuttles are being retired after US President Barack Obama opted not to fund a successor program, deciding instead to encourage private spacecraft development. The final two shuttle missions are both to the orbiting International Space Station (ISS). The shuttle Discovery’s flight to the ISS, scheduled for Sept. 16, will likely be moved to Oct. 29, while the final flight of the shuttle Endeavor, currently scheduled for late November, will probably be postponed to Feb. 28, Beutel said.
■UNITED STATES
Stem cell case reinstated
A US appeals court reinstated a lawsuit on Friday that challenges an Obama administration’s policy of paying for some human embryonic stem cell research. The unusual suit against the National Institutes of Health (NIH), backed by some Christian groups, argued that the NIH policy violates US law and takes funds from researchers seeking to work with adult stem cells. A federal court had rejected the lawsuit, saying the challengers had no standing. A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit did not rule on the merits of the lawsuit, but said two of the doctors involved had legal standing to file it. “Because the guidelines have intensified the competition for a share in a fixed amount of money, the plaintiffs will have to invest more time and resources to craft a successful grant application,” the three-judge panel said in a 12-page ruling.
‘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
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
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
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
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