SAUDI ARABIA
‘Driving threatens virgins’
A rights activist says a report given to a high-level advisory group claims that women in the kingdom would have options for premarital sex if allowed to drive. The ultra-conservative stance suggests increasing pressure on Saudi King Abdullah to retain the kingdom’s male-only driving rules. Rights activist Waleed Abu Alkhair said on Saturday that the document by a well-known academic was sent to the all-male Shura Council, which advises the monarchy. The report by Kamal Subhi says that allowing women to drive would threaten the country’s traditions of virgin brides, the activist said.
INDONESIA
Drugs boy released
A 14-year-old Australian boy has been released after serving two months in a detention center for buying drugs while vacationing with his family in Bali. The teenager wore a mask to hide his face from photographers as he walked out of the immigration detention center yesterday with his parents. The boy, who cannot be named because of his age, has promised to enter a drug rehabilitation program after returning home to Morrisset Park, just north of Sydney.
PHILIPPINES
Piranha sellers arrested
Police said they have arrested five people for selling carnivorous piranhas, raising fears over what could happen if the fish got into local waterways. At least 62 live piranha fingerlings were seized from the group after a sting operation where a fisheries officer posed as a buyer late on Thursday, senior superintendent Jude Santos said. “We immediately turned them over to the Bureau of Fisheries and their expert determined they were piranhas ... I think they have killed them by now,” Santos said. The fish, known for their sharp teeth, an appetite for meat and their ability to strip flesh from a carcass, were being sold to collectors of exotic fish to be placed in aquariums, the police chief said. However, if they got into local waterways, they could breed quickly and pose a threat to local fish — and even humans, Santos said.
PHILIPPINES
Chinese fishermen detained
Naval authorities detained six Chinese fishermen for alleged poaching in the country’s territorial waters, police said yesterday. The fishermen’s vessel was intercepted on Thursday off the coastal town of Balabac in Palawan, a western island facing the South China Sea where both countries have overlapping territorial claims. “Recovered from their possession and control were 11 sea turtles, fish nets and other paraphernalia,” national police spokesman chief superintendent Agrimero Cruz said. He said the six have been detained and their boat confiscated while charges against them were being prepared.
INDIA
12 charged with murder
Police have charged 12 people, including a fugitive reputed gangster, over the daytime murder of a Mumbai crime reporter almost six months ago. Jyotirmoy Dey had been working as investigations editor for MiD Day newspaper when he was gunned down on June 11 in a Mumbai suburb by motorcycle-riding assailants. Police believe that reputed gang leader and fugitive Chhota Rajan ordered the hit in retaliation for several negative stories and that he allegedly paid the attackers 500,000 rupees (US$9,700). The indictment filed on Saturday in a Maharashtra state court names Rajan along with 11 other people, including the alleged gunmen and those suspected of providing cash, cellphone SIM cards and the revolver used in the killing.
UNITED KINGDOM
Assange aims for top court
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange is to seek today to have his appeal against extradition to Sweden heard by the nation’s top court, playing his final card in a lengthy legal battle. Almost a year after his arrest over claims of rape and sexual assault, the 40-year-old Australian will ask two judges at London’s High Court to decide whether his appeal can proceed to the Supreme Court. For the appeal to be heard in the highest court, the judges must rule the case raises a question of general public importance. Today’s hearing comes a month after his first appeal against a ruling that he can be sent to Sweden was rejected. If the ruling goes against Assange, the British leg of his legal battle will end and he faces extradition to Sweden within 10 days.
GERMANY
Old bomb to be defused
Officials in the western city of Koblenz said about 45,000 residents had to be evacuated yesterday as officials tried to defuse a World War II era bomb discovered in the Rhine River. City officials said that the massive British 1.8 tonne bomb was to be defused yesterday, requiring all residents within a 1.8km radius of the bomb site to leave their homes for the day. Officials said seven nursing homes, two hospitals and a prison were evacuated in the biggest such operation in the city since the war. The bomb was found last week after the Rhine’s water level fell because of a lack of rain.
UNITED STATES
Portland protesters arrested
Authorities say riot police moved into a downtown Portland, Oregon, park area and arrested several anti-Wall Street protesters on Saturday night after they refused to leave. Occupy Portland demonstrators set up tents in the park earlier in the day and vowed to stay through the winter, defying city officials who said overnight camping will not be allowed. Police sergeant Pete Simpson said officers began detaining protesters at 8:30pm after the park was closed 30 minutes early. He said several arrests were made, but didn’t have an exact count.
JAPAN
Mammoth may be cloned
Scientists from Japan and Russia believe it may be possible to clone a mammoth after finding well-preserved bone marrow in a thigh bone recovered from permafrost soil in Siberia, a report said on Saturday. Teams from the Sakha Republic’s mammoth museum and Kinki University will launch joint research next year aimed at recreating the giant mammal, Kyodo News reported from Yakutsk, Russia. By replacing the nuclei of egg cells from an elephant with those taken from the mammoth’s marrow cells, embryos with mammoth DNA can be produced, Kyodo said, citing the researchers. The scientists will then plant the embryos into elephant wombs for delivery, as the two species are close relatives, the report said.
UNITED NATIONS
UN hunts Libya weapons
The UN Security Council on Friday added the hunt for rogue surface-to-air missiles and other weapons in Libya to the duties of the UN mission in the country. The 15-member council unanimously passed a resolution provisionally extending the mandate of the mission until March 16, which has mainly been giving political support to Libya’s transitional government. Growing concern over the weapons caches — particularly thousands of shoulder-fired rocket launchers — left by former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi led to the extension of the mission’s duties.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
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