MYANMAR
Rebels bomb railway line
Ethnic Kachin rebels have bombed a major railway line in the north of the country for the third time in less than a month, a state-run newspaper said yesterday. The attack was the latest targeting the military-backed government since a long-standing peace deal with the Kachin forces deteriorated with an outbreak of fighting last month. The New Light of Myanmar said rebels attacked the train line that runs from the city of Mandalay to the Kachin State capital, Myitkyina, on Tuesday night. No casualties were reported and the track was repaired. The state paper said the train, which provides a vital link to Kachin State, was also attacked by rebels on June 22 and June 30.
INDIA
Textiles minister resigns
Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran resigned yesterday over corruption allegations, television reports said, dealing a new blow to the administration of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Police suggested on Wednesday that Maran, telecoms minister from 2004 to 2007, might have manipulated the sale of second-generation mobile phone licenses in favor of companies to which he was linked. Singh has grappled with a string of government-linked graft scandals over the last year, including claims that the allocation of the licenses cost the treasury US$40 billion in lost revenue. In the police report lodged with the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Maran was alleged to have forced a businessman to sell a stake in the Aircel telecoms group to another company that was close to the Maran family.
KYRGYZSTAN
President warns on election
The president has called on parliament to urgently review a recent reshuffle of the Central Asian nation’s top election body that she warns could derail a vote scheduled for October. President Roza Otunbayeva said in a statement yesterday that lawmakers’ decision last month to reject two of her four nominees to the 12-member Central Elections Commission breaches the election law. Otunbayeva says uncertainty over the commission’s legitimacy could spark legal complaints after the election in which she is to be replaced.
INDONESIA
Drug smuggler loses appeal
An Australian drug smuggler sentenced to death, one of the “Bali Nine” gang arrested in 2005, has lost his final appeal against the punishment, his lawyer said yesterday. Todung Mulya Lubis, a lawyer for 30-year-old Myuran Sukumaran, said he found out on Wednesday that Sukumaran’s judicial review had been rejected by the Supreme Court. “I’m very saddened by the decision,” Lubis said. “He has admitted his guilt and asked not to be sentenced to death. The death punishment should actually be revoked.” Lubis said it was not clear if Sukumaran would be able to seek any further judicial review of his sentence.
CHINA
Bridge construction rushed
Officials have been accused of rushing construction of the world’s longest sea bridge so that it can open for the Communist Party’s 90th anniversary, with nuts left unfastened, state media said yesterday. In the haste to finish the bridge before the July 1 celebrations, nuts on guard rails were in place but not fastened on a roughly 15m section of the 36.5km Jiaozhou Bay Bridge, the Global Times said. The lighting system also had not been installed before it opened on June 30 and it would take at least two months to finish all the bridge’s features, state-run China Central Television reported earlier this week.
UNITED STATES
CNN cancels Spitzer show
Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer was cut from CNN’s prime-time lineup on Wednesday. Spitzer, who resigned in March 2008, 14 months into his term as New York governor amid a prostitution scandal, began his nightly show on CNN in October. CNN moved Anderson Cooper’s flagship newscast into the tough 8pm time slot and eliminated Spitzer’s In the Arena program. Spitzer ended his last show on Wednesday with a quotation from former US president Theodore Roosevelt praising people who get “in the arena” to try to improve society, a passage he said inspired the name for his show. CNN talked to Spitzer about staying with the network as a commentator, but he declined.
UNITED STATES
Weapons lab reopens
Smoke still hung in the air from a northern New Mexico wildfire that came dangerously close to the nation’s No. 1 nuclear weapons laboratory, but life was returning to normal on Wednesday as thousands of employees showed up for their first day of work in more than a week. Although the threat to Los Alamos National Laboratory and the town that surrounds it has passed, the largest fire in New Mexico’s history continued to burn in remote areas. The fire, which began last month, had forced the closure of the lab along with the evacuation of thousands of residents in nearby communities.
UNITED STATES
Grizzly kills hiker
A hiker was killed by a grizzly bear in the Yellowstone National Park on Wednesday after he and his wife surprised the bear and her cubs on a popular trail, park officials said. The woman was not wounded in the attack. This was the first such killing in the park in nearly 25 years, the officials said. Grizzly bears can weigh up to 680kg and sport large shoulder humps. Despite their size, they can run up to 55kph, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. The bears tend to avoid humans, but can be extremely aggressive if they perceive a threat to their young. There are warning signs about grizzlies throughout the national park, and the attack took place in an area where bear-sightings are common.
HONDURAS
Ex-beauty queen arrested
Police say they arrested Miss Honduras 2009 on money laundering charges for failing to declare the equivalent of US$47,000 when entering the country. Special services police spokesman Alex Madrid said 25-year-old Belgica Suarez was arrested with euros and British pounds on a highway near the Nicaraguan border. Madrid said the beauty queen failed to declare the money when she crossed the border from the city of Esteli in Nicaragua. “She claimed she had earned the money working as a model in Europe,” Madrid said.
YEMEN
Al-Qaeda ambush kills 10
Suspected al-Qaeda militants killed 10 soldiers when they ambushed them on a road in the south of the country, where the jihadist network has a stronghold, a military official said yesterday. The gunmen opened fire on the vehicle in which the soldiers were traveling on Wednesday north of the city of Loder, in Abyan Province, killing them all, the official said. Only the driver survived, although he was wounded, a medical official said. Supporters of al-Qaeda have strengthened their grip on the south of the country since a wave of popular protests erupted in late January against the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
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