INDONESIA
Boy dies of bird flu
A 12-year-old boy on the Indonesian resort island of Bali has died from bird flu on Tuesday, the fourth human death from the virus this year, an official said yesterday. The boy developed fever on Feb. 11 and was admitted to hospital five days later, said Rita Kusriastuti, head of the Indonesian ministry of health’s animal-borne infectious disease control department. “He suffered shortness of breath and eventually died on Feb. 21. Laboratory tests confirmed he died from the H5N1 virus,” she added.
PAKISTAN
US efforts failing: cable
The US ambassador to Afghanistan sent a top-secret cable to Washington last month warning that the existence of enemy havens in Pakistan was placing the US strategy in Afghanistan in jeopardy, the Washington Post reported late on Friday. Citing unnamed US officials, the newspaper said that the cable, written by ambassador Ryan Crocker, amounted to an admission that US efforts to curtail activities in Pakistan by the Haqqani network, a key Taliban ally, were failing.
ITALY
Church property to get taxed
Italy’s government announced measures on Friday to end tax exemptions on commercial property owned by the Catholic Church, a move expected to add as much as 600 million euros (US$805 million) to state coffers each year. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, who is a practising Catholic, tacked the measure — which also affects other non-profit organizations — onto a larger deregulation package currently going through parliament. The Church owns many private clinics, hotels and guesthouses that enjoy tax-exempt status, because parts of them are also occupied by priests or nuns, or have a chapel. The new law closes this loophole. The income it makes from the measure will go towards cutting taxes, the government said.
KAZAKHSTAN
Opposition leaders arrested
Kazakh police arrested three leading opposition members yesterday as hundreds of protesters braved a much stronger security presence to rally against strongman President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s rule. About 1,000 protesters had gathered on the main Palace of the Republic square in the financial capital Alamty to express outrage at the energy-rich state’s rights record under the veteran leader. Police raided the homes of three top members of the unregistered Azat (Freedom) party before the event began and hauled them off to a central police station for questioning, a party spokesman said by telephone.
NORTH KOREA
Talks no closer: diplomat
A US diplomat said yesterday that talks with North Korea aimed at restarting six-party negotiations on the country’s nuclear programs are unlikely to produce a breakthrough in the near future. Glyn Davies, coordinator for US policy on North Korea, said there was still a “long way” to go before the six-party talks could resume. Davies was speaking in Seoul, where he arrived yesterday to brief South Korean officials on two days of discussions with North Korean diplomats in Beijing. In the Chinese capital he had said he had seen “a little bit of progress,” but no breakthrough. Asked about the prospect of the six-party talks resuming, Davies was quoted by Yonhap news agency as saying: “We are so long away from anything like that.”
VENEZUELA
Chavez back in Cuba
President Hugo Chavez arrived in Cuba for urgent cancer surgery following an emotional departure in which he vowed to win the presidential election in October despite his illness. The socialist leader said he was greeted at the airport by Cuban President Raul Castro and that he planned to meet with Cuban doctors for medical tests scheduled for yesterday. “I have faith that everything will go well,” Chavez told state television by telephone late on Friday. Chavez, who is seeking his fourth term as president, has said the tumor that doctors will try to remove is probably malignant.
UNITED STATES
UK businessman faces trial
A retired British businessman accused of plotting to sell missile components to Iran arrived in the country late on Friday to face charges after failing to overturn an extradition order. Christopher Tappin faces charges in El Paso, Texas, that he tried in 2006 to buy specialized batteries for Hawk missiles for US$25,000 from undercover agents with the intention of exporting them to Iran. His first court appearance is scheduled for tomorrow. The 65-year-old Tappin faces up to 35 years in jail if convicted. He fought extradition for two years until last month when he was denied a petition to take the case to Britain’s Supreme Court. A subsequent appeal to the European Human Rights Court was also rejected.
UNITED STATES
Bout removed from solitary
A judge on Friday ordered Viktor Bout, a Russian convicted of arms trafficking, to be removed from solitary confinement and put into a regular facility, saying that to continue his 15-month ordeal violated the constitution. Bout was convicted in November last year in New York federal court. Since his extradition Bout has been kept in severely restrictive conditions in the special housing unit of the metropolitan correctional center in Manhattan. While there, he has been confined to a tiny cell with just one hour of exercise in another small room, where he is also alone.
SPAIN
Treasure heads back home
Tonnes of gold and silver from a Spanish ship that sunk in 1804 and was discovered by a US deep sea exploration company was on its way home on Friday aboard two military transport planes. The transfer ends a five-year legal battle between Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc and Madrid over treasure from the sunken frigate Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, the most valuable sunken treasure discovery in history. “The total was 49,000lbs, much more than the 17 tonnes thought at first, because the first quantity the company announced was not correct,” Ministry of Defense press spokesperson Miguel Morer said. he added that the treasure was believed to be worth about US$500 million.
RUSSIA
Anti-Putin protests continue
Alexei Navalny vowed to lead 10,000 people through the streets of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s native city yesterday in protest against his likely return to the Kremlin in March 4 polls. The event was called a day before thousands more hoped to link hands around Moscow in a poignant show of frustration with the former KGB spy’s decision to seek a third presidential term after dominating politics for 12 years. “The head of the party of swindlers and thieves has to be crushed [in Saint Petersburg] on March 4,” Navalny wrote in his blog.
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
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