JAPAN
Arrest made over drone
Police arrested a man who admitted to landing a drone with low-level radioactive sand on the roof of the prime minister’s office to protest the government’s nuclear energy policy, officials said yesterday. Tokyo metropolitan police said the man turned himself in late on Friday to Fukui police in the nation’s west. The small drone found on Wednesday had traces of radiation and triggered fears of potential terrorist attacks using unmanned aerial devices, police said. No one was injured and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was traveling at the time. Police said Yasuo Yamamoto, 40, was arrested on suspicion of flying the drone and obstructing duties at the prime minister’s office. Public broadcaster NHK said police quoted the unemployed man as saying he did it to protest the government’s nuclear energy policy.
AUSTRALIA
Shark mauls surfer
A surfer was fighting for his life yesterday after being mauled by a shark in the nation’s south, police said. The man was surfing at Fishery Bay in Port Lincoln National Park, about 245km west of Adelaide, when the shark attacked him. “The man sustained life-threatening injuries and was transported to Port Lincoln Hospital,” South Australia Police said. South Australian Abalone Industry Association president Jonas Woolford said there had been increased shark sightings in the area recently. “All the reports are that they’re out there and that they’re aggressive,” he told the Port Lincoln Times.
VIETNAM
Hanoi pans Canadian bill
Hanoi has issued a stern rebuke to Ottawa after the Canadian Senate passed a bill commemorating the arrival of tens of thousands of “boat people” who fled after Saigon — now Ho Chi Minh City — fell to the communists 40 years ago. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had summoned the Canadian ambassador on Friday to lodge a formal complaint about the move, which dubs April 30 “Journey to Freedom Day.” Communist forces captured Saigon, then the capital of the US-backed South Vietnam regime, on April 30, 1975, marking the end of decades of conflict and triggering a mass exodus of refugees. In Vietnam, April 30 is celebrated as “reunification day” and the country is preparing for an elaborate event on Thursday to mark four decades since the end of the war. The Canadian Senate’s move was “completely wrong” ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said, according to a statement posted on its official Web site. The bill “distorts the history of national liberation and unification of the Vietnamese people,” he said.
CHINA
Tobacco ads restricted
The National People’s Congress has passed legislation that restricts tobacco advertising in public, strengthening efforts to curb smoking in a country where more than a billion people are smokers or exposed to second-hand smoke. A revised advertisement law approved on Friday by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress bans tobacco ads in the mass media, in public places, on public vehicles and outdoors, Xinhua news agency reported. The amended law also outlaws tobacco products, their packaging and trademarks in advertisements for other products or services, Xinhua reported. Other changes to the law include banning advertising for dairy products, drinks and foods that claim to be a substitute for breast milk, and a stipulation that advertisements for drugs, medical equipment and healthcare products cannot use endorsements testifying to the effects or safety of the products, Xinhua reported.
TOGO
Presidential elections held
Voters yesterday went to the polls to choose a new president, with President Faure Gnassingbe seeking a third term in office. Gnassingbe, 48, has been in power since the death of his father, former president Gnassingbe Eyadema in 2005. Armored military vehicles were seen in the streets of the capital, Lome, on Friday, reporters said. About 3.5 million of the nation’s 7 million people are registered to vote. They are set to choose between Faure Gnassingbe and opposition leader Jean-Pierre Fabre.
FRANCE
Alegerian suspect charged
An Algerian jihadist sympathizer arrested in connection with a thwarted attack on a church was charged with terror-related murder on Friday after five days of police questioning. Sid Ahmed Ghlam, 24, was taken into custody on Sunday after he accidentally shot himself in the leg, a fluke occurrence that led to police uncovering an alleged plot to attack at least one church in the town of Villejuif, just south of Paris. Ghlam, who remains in a Paris hospital recovering from the gunshot wound, was charged with “murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise” and criminal conspiracy, a source close to the case told reporters.
SWITZERLAND
Saint Bernard snaps banned
If there is one photograph to take home from the nation, it is probably a selfie featuring iconic Saint Bernard dogs against the snow-covered backdrop of the Matterhorn peak. However, such photo-ops are now over. The popular ski resort of Zermatt has banned tourists from posing for photos with the famed search and rescue dogs, following complaints that some of the Saint Bernards were kept in miserable conditions. The group Swiss Animal Protection had called for the ban, saying that some dogs used in Zermatt were not taken for walks and were left “for long periods without food or water … They are made to wait long hours in the cold outdoors for photographs.”
URUGUAY
Former detainees protest
Three former Guantanamo Bay inmates who were released to the nation last year protested in Montevideo on Friday over the country’s “broken promises.” The men are among six former detainees who attained refugee status and were transferred by the US in December last year following 12 years without charge in the US military prison. Standing outside the US embassy in Montevideo, the men complained that they were suffering severe financial hardships and had been unable to see their families.
UNITED STATES
Swedish police cause stir
Four burly Swedish police officers were hailed as heroes and set hearts aflutter with their model-like looks after they put aside their New York vacation to subdue a bloodied fight. The Swedes were taking the subway to a Broadway performance of Les Miserables on Thursday night when the train operator suddenly put a frantic call out for any police officers on the train. “We thought maybe someone needed help,” police officer Samuel Kvarzell, 25, was quoted as saying by the New York Police Department. The Swedes said they found one homeless man beating another. “One of the guys was on top of the other guy, so we separated them,” the 25-year-old Markus Asberg told the New York Post. Jansberger and Erik Naslund restrained the aggressor, “who was screaming and resisting the Nordic heroes,” the Post reported.
UNITED STATES
Mattel in ‘Nazi Poland’ row
The Polish government has asked toy maker Mattel to withdraw a party game, over a reference to “Nazi Poland” on one of its cards. The request, made through the embassy in Washington, came a week after Ambassador to Poland Stephen Mull was summoned to the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs over remarks made by FBI Director James Comey about the Holocaust and “the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland and Hungary.” The Mattel game, Apples to Apples , asks players to compare things in order to create “crazy combinations” in a game “as unique as the individuals who are playing.” The card, which came to the attention of the Polish government, is entitled Schindler’s List and contains the text: “1993 Steven Spielberg film. Powerful, real-life story of a Catholic businessman who eventually saved over 1,000 Jews in Nazi Poland.”
UNITED STATES
New magma chamber found
Scientists have spied a vast reservoir of hot, partly molten rock beneath the supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park that is big enough to fill the Grand Canyon 11 times over. The newly discovered magma chamber — located up to 45km underground — is four times bigger than the previously known chamber above it, according to imaging by researchers at the University of Utah. The discovery fills a missing link in Yellowstone’s volcanic plumbing system, but scientists said it does not increase the risk of an eruption, which is estimated to happen every 700,000 years. Researchers now think hot and semi-molten rock is carried upward from 60km beneath the surface to the newly found reservoir and the chamber above it.
UNITED STATES
Bison escapees shot dead
Fifteen bison that escaped from a farm were intentionally shot and killed on Friday after they dashed past a group of police officers, crossed a major highway and ended up near some schools, authorities said. Three men hired by the farm opened fire on the animals on Friday afternoon in woods in the town of Coeymans, New York. “The last thing we wanted to do was put these animals down, but it wasn’t a safe scene,’’ Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple said. Bethlehem Police Lieutenant Thomas Heffernan said the decision was made after experts agreed tranquilizers would not be effective and no portable corrals or trailers could hold the animals.
CHILE
Authorities urge evacuations
Authorities on Friday urged 2,000 people living near the Calbuco volcano to evacuate after potentially devastating mudflows of volcanic debris were detected in a nearby river, the result of two huge eruptions this week that sent ash across large swaths of southern South America. Officials said the evacuations were precautionary, but necessary because flows of volcanic mud, known as lahars, are capable of leveling anything in their path once in motion. The area had been evacuated on Wednesday afternoon after the volcano first erupted, but by Friday many people had begun to return home even as Calbuco continued to billow lesser ejections of smoke and ash. Authorities said the evacuees from the towns of Chamiza, Lago Chapo and Correntoso would stay at shelters in the nearby city of Puerto Montt, a little more than 1,100km south of the capital, Santiago. The head of the National Mining and Geology Service on Friday said that the volcano’s eruptive process could last weeks or months and warned that a third eruption was possible.
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
The Russian minister of foreign affairs warned the US, South Korea and Japan against forming a security partnership targeting North Korea as he visited the ally country for talks on further solidifying their booming military and other cooperation. Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov spoke on Saturday in Wonsan City, North Korea, where he met North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un and conveyed greetings from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kim during the meeting reaffirmed his government’s commitment to “unconditionally support and encourage all measures” taken by Russia in its conflict with Ukraine. Pyongyang and Moscow share identical views on “all strategic issues in
‘FALSE NARRATIVE’: China and the Solomon Islands inked a secretive security pact in 2022, which is believed to be a prelude to building a Chinese base, which Beijing denied The Australian government yesterday said it expects China to spy on major military drills it is conducting with the US and other allies. It also renewed a charge — denounced by Beijing as a “false narrative” — that China wants to establish a military base in the South Pacific. The comments by a government minister came as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made a six-day visit to China to bolster recently repaired trade ties. More than 30,000 military personnel from 19 nations are set to join in the annual Talisman Sabre exercises from yesterday across Australia and Papua New Guinea. “The Chinese military have
The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US. As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to
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