AUSTRALIA
Father of child bride jailed
A man who consented to an Islamic “marriage” ceremony between his 12-year-old daughter and a man more than twice her age was yesterday jailed for at least six years. The 63-year-old father, who cannot be named to protect the girl’s identity, was found guilty in April of procuring a child under the age of 14 for unlawful sexual activity and encouraging the pair to have intercourse despite denying the charges. “[The man] failed in his duty to his daughter,” Judge Deborah Sweeney said during sentencing at the Downing Centre District Court in Sydney. The court had earlier heard that he wanted to save the girl from what he considered the sin of having sex outside marriage, so when she reached puberty, he decided she should wed. When a 26-year-old Lebanese man, in Australia on a student visa, showed interest in her, the father consented to a marriage, which was carried out by a local sheikh last year at his home about 250km north of Sydney. On the night of the wedding, the pair went to a hotel with the father’s permission. They had sex there and twice more at the father’s home the following weekend.
SPAIN
‘Baby dumper’ arrested
Police on Thursday arrested a Colombian woman for allegedly dumping her newborn baby in a rubbish bin. The boy, who is about 10 days old, was found by police on Wednesday in a bin in the village of Mejorada del Campo, about 20km east of Madrid. The tiny infant, who escaped serious harm, was found in a backpack concealed in a plastic bag. Madrid Prefect Concepcion Dancausa told reporters that a baby’s bottle found next to the child led to the mother. The brand of bottle was one used by the local Alcala de Henares hospital. By examining the hospital’s recent birth records, they discovered the name of a 37-year-old Colombian woman who lived just next to where the child was dumped, Dancausa said. The woman initially denied disposing of her baby, but later confessed, the prefect added.
ITALY
Animals given showers, AC
Farmers are installing showers and air conditioning (AC) in cowsheds and pigsties to allow the animals to freshen up in the baking summer heat, an agriculture group said on Thursday. Farm animals in Italy — particularly in the muggy agricultural heartland around the Po river near Milan — are under stress as the mercury approaches 40oC in the hottest July for more than a decade. Cows produced 50 million liters less milk than usual in the first 15 days of the month and chickens laid between 5 and 10 percent fewer eggs, the group said in a statement.
UNITED KINGDOM
Nessie a ‘catfish’: watcher
A man who has spent 24 years scanning Scotland’s Loch Ness for its legendary mysterious monster reckons Nessie is most likely a giant catfish — although he is not prepared to give up looking just yet. Steve Feltham, who holds a Guinness World Record for the longest continuous Nessie vigil, says it is the most probable explanation for the enigmatic beast that has captivated people’s imaginations the world over. Feltham left his home and girlfriend in 1991 to go looking for Nessie and has spent the years since in a caravan on the lake shore, scanning the waters. Feltham said he would keep searching for the definitive conclusion. “We still have this world-class mystery and for the next several decades, I hope to carry on trying to find the answer,” he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
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