THAILAND
Bangkok floods spread
Floodwaters are moving closer to the heart of the capital, with officials warning that no major barriers are standing in the way to prevent the water from reaching downtown Bangkok. City spokesman Jate Sopitpongstorn said yesterday that workers have finished building a massive flood wall in hopes of diverting some of the mass of water still piled up in northern Bangkok. However, he said the city would have to rely on its existing drainage system to fight water that was already less than 10km from the central business district.
IRAQ
Bombs target Sahwa leader
Four bombs targeting the home of an Iraqi anti-al-Qaeda militia leader killed at least three people and wounded several north of Baghdad yesterday, security officials said. The bomb blasts struck the home of Yassin Issa Daud, a leader of Sahwa militia in Taji at about 6:30am, Taji police Captain Ahmed Fahad said. The explosions killed three people, including Daud’s brother and wife, and wounded six other people, Fahad said, adding Daud was not in his home at the time of the attack. Officials from the interior and defence ministries put the toll at four killed and 11 wounded. “Four people were killed and 11 others wounded by the explosion of four roadside bombs that targeted the house of a Sahwa leader in Taji,” the interior ministry official said.
SOUTH AFRICA
Lions shot after attacks
Wildlife workers drove through the night across sand and dunes, desperate to save two lions who had strayed from a vast park and killed a farmer’s cow. The farmer had already killed a third lion. South African National Parks spokeswoman Henriette Engelbrecht on Wednesday said that instead of saving the big cats, a park researcher ended up rescuing a ranger, pulling him free and leaving the ranger’s boot in the lion’s jaws. The two lions were then shot. Engelbrecht says Tuesday’s events near the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park left two rangers and a researcher “very disappointed and very shocked.” She says the men had never before met with lions bold enough to attack people in a vehicle.
KENYA
Murder probe restarted
British police say a team of detectives has traveled to Kenya to further investigate the murder of a British woman more than 20 years ago. Julie Ward, 28, was murdered in September 1988 while visiting the Masai Mara game reserve to photograph animals. Two game rangers were charged and acquitted in 1992 in relation to the murder. Britain’s Metropolitan Police said on Friday that six detectives and a crime scene manager will work alongside Kenyan police for 11 days, interviewing witnesses. The team also will pursue DNA and fingerprint evidence. The force has made at least three previous trips to Kenya in relation to the case.
NIGERIA
Bombings rock cities
A triple suicide bombing of military headquarters in Maiduguri and three roadside bombs in different areas shook northeast Nigeria’s biggest city on Friday, while militants launched multiple gun and bomb attacks two other cities west of it, witnesses and the military said. It was one of the most violent days in radical Islamist sect Boko Haram’s growing campaign of violence against local authorities in Borno state. Earlier, three roadside bombs exploded in quick succession in an apparently coordinated strike, hitting the wards of Meduguri and Jajeri and the El-Kanemi College of Islamic Theology.
BRAZIL
Jilted fiancee compensated
A court has ordered a man to pay US$6,500 for saying: “I don’t” to his former fiancee. Rio de Janeiro State Judge Benedicto Abicair said that Marcelo de Azevedo Fernandes must pay for “moral and material” damages to Cristiane Costa de Andrade. The ruling was posted on Friday on the court’s Web site. The couple was to have been married in September 2007, but Fernandes called it off. The judge said in his ruling that Andrade’s “suffering, anguish and humiliation cannot be ignored.” The fine is supposed to pay for the jilted woman’s wedding costs and visits to a psychologist.
CANADA
‘Super visa’ unveiled
Officials on Friday announced a new two-year, multi-entry “super visa” for parents and grandparents of immigrants settled in Canada. The move came after wait times for sponsorship of “family class” applications had grown to an unwieldy seven years or longer. The multiple-entry “Parent and Grandparent Super Visa” will be valid for up to 10 years, officials said, and allow applicants to remain in Canada for 24 months before needing seek visa renewal. The new visas will begin on Dec. 1 and the will be issued, “on average, within eight weeks of the application,” officials said.
BRITAIN
Come clean on duchy: ruling
A tribunal said Prince Charles must end a culture of secrecy covering his 700-year-old Duchy of Cornwall estate and answer some public requests for environmental information. The First-Tier Tribunal on information rights said on Friday that it had ruled on Thursday on a tussle between an environmental campaigner and the heir to the throne. Judge John Angel said the Duchy of Cornwall — the 55,000 hectare estate established in the 14th century — must abide by environmental information regulations. It means the estate must answer requests made under the regulations, which are similar to freedom of information laws, but relate to environmental issues. The duchy earned Prince Charles almost ￡18 million (US$29 million) last year.
UNITED STATES
Central Park cleared for race
The thousands of runners in the New York City Marathon this weekend will have a clear path through Central Park after workers removed branches and trees snapped by a snowstorm late last month. Central Park Conservancy spokeswoman Dena Libner said on Thursday that the cleanup would continue for a couple more weeks, but that the park would be ready for today’s race. Thousands of trees were damaged over about 160 hectares of the park. The National Weather Service said about 7.6cm of wet snow weighed down branches until they snapped. The marathon runs through all five city boroughs and ends in Central Park.
ITALY
Bombing spared Roman sites
An archeologist is thanking NATO for the precision of its bombing raids over Libya, saying they spared many of the country’s ancient Roman sites. Hafed Walda, a Libya-born research fellow at King’s College, London, told a conference in Rome on Friday that inspections had not revealed any damage to the ancient ruins of Leptis Magna and Sabratha. He says he wants to “say thank you to NATO for achieving precision strikes” during the campaign to protect civilians from slain Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s regime during this year’s revolt. Walda said he would be heading soon to Benghazi, but reports indicate there has been no damage to sites there either.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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