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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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