■BANGLADESH
UN mission weapons on ship
The army said yesterday that an arms-laden ship bound for Pakistan detained by Indian authorities last week was returning weapons used during a UN peacekeeping mission. The MV Aegean Glory, bound for Karachi, was seized on Friday 50km south of the Indian city of Kolkata. It contained explosives, rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns and bombs, Indian officials said. The ship was returning decommissioned weapons used by Pakistani peacekeepers in Liberia, armed forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Kazi Kabirul Islam said in a statement. “The ship left Chittagong Port on June 24 after unloading 32 containers of weapons and military vehicles. The unloading was supervised by a UN designated local shipping agent called Sun Shine Business Limited,” he said.
■INDIA
Seven injured in clashes
Seven people were injured yesterday when security forces clashed with protesters who defied a curfew in Kashmir, officials said, as authorities tried to end growing separatist demonstrations. Sopore, 50km north of Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar, has been under curfew since Friday last week after two young men died when soldiers opened fire as protesters attacked their vehicle. On Sunday, another man was killed when security forces fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse protesters in Sopore who had defied the curfew. Yesterday’s clashes erupted when mourners tried to march through the streets carrying the man’s body.
■CHINA
‘Bird man’ to be tried
A man who lived in a tree for more than three months to protest the planned demolition of his home is being tried for disturbing public order, state media said yesterday. Chen Maoguo (陳茂國) was dubbed the “bird man” for his treetop sit-in last year in the Chongqing region, staged to protest what he considered inadequate compensation for the razing of his home, the Yunnan Information News said. His home was one of many to be knocked down to make way for a shopping mall in Fengjie County. Land seizures, often involving corrupt officials and businesses eyeing real estate profits, have been a growing source of unrest in the country.
■CHINA
PLA officers matchmaking
Military officers have added matchmaking to their duties after the government banned troops from online dating over fears that lonely hearts might let sensitive information slip, state media said yesterday. Commanders of the 2.3 million strong People’s Liberation Army are studying how to help single service members find love, the China Daily said in a report on new rules governing what troops can and can’t do online. Blogs are out, along with Internet dating, online job hunts and even making friends in the virtual world under the Internal Affairs Regulation, which came into effect on June 15, the report said.
■JAPAN
PRC asked to condemn Kim
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said he asked Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in talks in Toronto on Sunday to condemn North Korea’s alleged sinking of a South Korean warship. Citing a G8 summit declaration on Saturday condemning the attack that left 46 people dead, Kan said he “encouraged China to move in a similar direction,” pointing out to Hu that Beijing’s condemnation was “necessary.” Beijing has issued only mild calls for restraint and offered condolences to families of the dead but it has refused to condemn the North.
■CANADA
Nuclear deal signed
Toronto and India signed a landmark nuclear deal on Sunday, ending a quarter of a century of mistrust after India used Canadian technology to build its first nuclear bomb. The nuclear cooperation agreement will enable India to import Canadian nuclear equipment and technology and secure uranium, an abundant source of nuclear energy, to fuel the Asian nation’s rapid economic growth, officials said. Canada is the eighth nation to reach a civil nuclear deal with India since the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group, a cartel that trades in nuclear fuel, equipment and technology, lifted a 34-year ban on India in 2008. Aside from the US, New Delhi has inked atomic deals with France and Russia.
■UNITED STATES
Teenage sailor flies home
Sixteen-year-old sailor Abby Sunderland is homeward bound — though her plane flight back to California isn’t the homecoming she originally imagined when she set off hoping to sail around the world. About two weeks after her rescue at sea, Sunderland departed on Sunday from the French island of Reunion, off the southeast coast of Africa, en route to France. The teenager’s attempt to sail solo around the world ended on June 10 when her mast snapped in an Indian Ocean storm, sparking an extensive international rescue mission. Sunderland, who said before boarding the plane that she was looking forward to seeing her family again, carried a pair of large blue gum boots given to her as a memento by the French fishing boat that rescued her in a remote part of the Indian Ocean.
■UNITED STATES
Obama to visit India
President Barack Obama said he looked forward to visiting India, an important ally. Obama plans to visit the rising Asian power with his family in early November. The president talked about the “strategic partnership” between the two nations in a meeting on Sunday with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. They were in Toronto for an economic summit of world leaders. India is crucial to the US-led fight against extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
■UNITED STATES
Palin criticizes Obama
Former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin said President Barack Obama’s administration was intent on surrendering the nation’s mantle as a superpower and willing to sell out its allies. Senator John McCain’s former running mate addressed a paying audience of several hundred people in Norfolk, Virginia, on Sunday night. She accused Obama of selling out ally Israel over its naval blockade of Gaza and treating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shabbily. She said that Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress had cut military spending, while showing no such restraint on other expenditures, running up trillions in new deficits.
■JAPAN
No sex on space station
There is no room for romance on board the cozy confines of the International Space Station, a NASA space shuttle commander said yesterday when asked what would happen if astronauts had sex in space. “We are a group of professionals,” Discovery commander Alan Poindexter said during a visit to Tokyo, after a reporter asked about the consequences if astronauts boldly went where probably no others have been. “We treat each other with respect and we have a great working relationship. Personal relationships are not ... an issue,” a serious-faced Poindexter said. “We don’t have them and we won’t.”
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
RSS