INDIA
Boat capsizes, killing 20
Fishermen and navy were searching yesterday for dozens missing after a boat crowded with Muslim pilgrims capsized near the Bay of Bengal, killing at least 20, police said. More than 100 people were packed onto the 60-capacity motorized boat when it was toppled by a wave from a passing ship on Saturday afternoon in the mouth of the Hooghly River, West Bengal’s deputy police director Surajit Kar Purkayastha said. Local boatmen rescued 40 people and recovered 20 bodies, including three young girls, before rescue efforts were called off because of darkness. Thirty of the survivors were hospitalized, Purkayastha said. The search resumed yesterday. The pilgrims were returning to Kakdwip aboard the boat Ma Durga after praying at the Hijli shrine in East Midnapur.
AUSTRALIA
Missing tourist found dead
Police yesterday said they had found the body of a German tourist who went missing in the harsh Kakadu wilderness in the north two days ago. “Emergency Service personnel have located the body of a 63-year-old male who was reported missing in Kakadu on Friday night,” Northern Territory police said in a statement. It was believed the man had begun a 12km bush walk around Nourlangie Rock, an escarpment famous for its native rock art, with no water early on Friday, police said. The man’s wife raised the alarm after her husband failed to return and park rangers, police and emergency services personnel searched for the tourist on Friday and Saturday without success. The body was found off the walking track and about 3km from the car park access to the popular tourist spot early yesterday. The Northern Territory’s coroner is expected to investigate the death. The country’s tropical north is hot and humid at this time of year, with an average temperature of 38?C.
AUSTRALIA
Woman saved from shark
A swimmer who grabbed the tail of a large shark as it attacked a snorkeling tour guide likely saved the young woman’s life, a rescuer said yesterday. Nineteen-year-old Elyse Frankcom was leading a swimming with dolphins encounter in waters off Fremantle on Saturday when a shark, reportedly a 3m-long great white, bit into her hip and buttocks. “As the shark bit her, it brushed aside a fairly large male who grabbed hold of the tail of the shark, which then made it let go,” one of the first rescuers on the scene, Fremantle Sea Rescue senior skipper Frank Pisani, said. “The girl then started to sink to the bottom and he grabbed her and brought her to the surface and got her back on board the boat. He certainly was instrumental in making this a good outcome.”
TURKEY
YouTube ban lifted
A news report says the country is lifting a ban on YouTube more than two years after it blocked access because of videos deemed insulting to the country’s founder. Transport Minister Binali Yildirim was quoted as saying the government had been in touch with Google, which owns YouTube. He says there were no longer reasons to ban the video-sharing site because the offending videos had been removed. NTV television quoted Yildirim as saying on Saturday that the ban had been removed. The country’s telecommunications authority banned access to YouTube in May 2008 after users complained some videos insulted Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the country in 1923. It is a crime in the country to insult Ataturk.
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
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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