RUSSIA
Cosmonaut sets record
Cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, now aboard the International Space Station, has broken the record for total time in space by spending more than two years in orbit during his career. At 1:42am Moscow time on Monday, Padalka, the mission commander, broke cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev’s record of 803 days, nine hours and 41 minutes. Padalka is due to return to Earth on Sept. 11. On June 21, while in orbit, he celebrated his 57th birthday.
FRANCE
Poisoning charges filed
A woman was on Monday charged with seducing and killing an elderly man and poisoning three others. Patricia Dagorn, who is in her 50s, is serving a five-year jail sentence for theft, fraud and kidnapping concerning an 88-year-old widowed teacher. A source in the new probe said she was taken from prison to be charged with “poisoning with premeditation” in the first case in 2011 and murder for a second death the same year in the city of Nice. In the case for which Dagorn was jailed in 2013, police found Valium and methadone at the home of her victim, a retired teacher identified as Robert. Robert told reporters at the time: “I almost died for three days of love.”
FRANCE
US spied on officials, firms
The US wiretapped two of the nation’s economy ministers and spied on the country’s largest companies, local media reported citing WikiLeaks documents, just days after it emerged the US had spied on three of the country’s leaders. Pierre Moscovici, former minister of the economy under former president Francois Hollande, and Francois Baroin, minister for budget and then for the economy under former president Nicholas Sarkozy, were both reportedly targeted by the US National Security Agency. The newspaper Liberation late on Monday said the US agency had spied on “almost all of the CAC 40” index of largest listed firms.
UNITED STATES
Sugary drinks deadly: study
Sodas and other sugary drinks may cause up to 184,000 deaths a year worldwide, according to a study published on Monday in the journal Circulation. The report analyzed the global risks of death due to diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancers linked to the consumption of sugary drinks. Researchers estimated that about 133,000 people died from diabetes due to the consumption of what the report called “sugar-sweetened beverages.” About 45,000 died globally from cardiovascular diseases arising from sugary drinks and 6,450 people died from cancers linked to the beverages, researchers estimated. Mexico had the highest death rate due to sugary drinks with a rate of 450 deaths per 1 million adults, the report said.
CANADA
Dismemberer seeks dates
A man sentenced to life in prison for killing and dismembering his Chinese lover and mailing body parts to schools and political parties has joined a matchmaking Web site for inmates. Luka Magnotta’s profile was posted on Sunday on Canadian Inmates Connect with two photos of the former stripper and prostitute in an unbuttoned white shirt. He was convicted in December last year of first-degree murder for the 2012 killing of university student Jun Lin (林俊) in Montreal. Magnotta filmed some of Lin’s dismemberment, posted the video online and mailed body parts to the Ottawa offices of two political parties, as well as to schools in British Columbia. Magnotta’s ad does not mention his specific conviction.
CHINA
CCP recruitment down
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) recruited almost 15 percent fewer new members last year amid hopes that better-qualified candidates will expand its guiding role in society. Accounting for deaths and other losses, membership expanded by 1.1 million members, or 1.3 percent, last year 4 to a total of 87.79 million, the party’s Organization Department said late on Monday in a statement on its Web site. An additional 56,000 party units were added in offices, companies and other organizations for a total of 4.36 million nationwide. However, recruitment of new members fell by 14.6 percent to just over 2 million, or 351,000 fewer than in 2013, the party said. The figures were released ahead of the 94th anniversary of the party’s establishment today.
AFGHANISTAN
Truck bombing kills two
A suicide truck bomb in Helmand Province yesterday killed two civilians and wounded more than 40, officials said. The attacker detonated a truck loaded with explosives at the gate of the police headquarters in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. Provincial police spokesman Farid Ahmad Obaid said all of the casualties were civilians. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Meanwhile, President Ashraf Ghani yesterday nominated a female judge to sit on the Supreme Court in an unprecedented move that has angered some Islamic conservatives. Anisa Rasouli, the head of the Afghan Women Judges Association and a former juvenile court judge, was the only female nominated to the nine-member bench after the announcement was delayed due to opposition by a group of Islamic conservatives earlier this month. “I’m proud to announce that for the very first time I have nominated a woman to the Supreme Court,” Ghani told a gathering of diplomats and women’s rights activists. “Appointing a woman to the Supreme Court does not alter the judicial system. We do have full support of the Ulema [Islamic scholars] for it.”
AUSTRALIA
Smoking ban sparks riot
Hundreds of inmates at a maximum security prison in Melbourne yesterday rioted, forcing the evacuation of prison staff, as a protest against a smoking ban at the facility spun out of control. Television footage from the prison in Ravenhall showed prisoners with their faces covered, carrying sticks as makeshift weapons, while smoke was also seen. As many as 300 inmates were involved, the Australian Broadcasting Corp said. The smoking ban, being imposed at prisons across the state, was due to take effect at Ravenhall yesterday.
JAPAN
Solar plane still aloft
The Solar Impulse 2 was high above the Pacific Ocean yesterday, more than a quarter of the way to Hawaii after leaving Nagoya, the mission Web site showed. The solar-powered plane has 6,136 more kilometers to go to reach Hawaii. “Enjoying every moment of this flight. Getting to this point has been challenging,” Swiss pilot Andri Borschberg tweeted.
LIBERIA
New Ebola fatality reported
A teenager has died of Ebola in the first recorded case since the country was declared free of the virus on May 9, Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah said yesterday. “A 17-year-old corpse was tested positive for Ebola virus. This took place in Margibi County. There is no need to panic. The corpse has been buried and our contact tracing has started work,” Nyenswah said.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
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