YEMEN
British hostage freed
United Arab Emirates (UAE) forces based in Aden have freed a British hostage who had been held by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula militants, the Emirates News Agency (WAM) said yesterday. The hostage, 64-year-old Douglas Robert Semple, a petroleum engineer abducted in February last year, was rescued on Saturday and taken Aden, where he was put on a military plane and flown to Abu Dhabi, WAM said. It said he was taken to a hospital for health checks and spoke to his wife by telephone, adding that he would leave for Britain following the medical check-up. Britain’s Foreign Office confirmed in a statement that the hostage was “extracted by UAE forces in a military intelligence operation” and was “safe and well.”
GERMANY
Dinosaur footprints found
Scientists have found an unusually long trail of footprints from a 30-tonne dinosaur in an abandoned quarry in Lower Saxony, a discovery they think could be about 145 million years old. “It’s very unusual how long the trail is and what great condition it’s in,” excavation leader Benjamin Englich said at the site, referring to 90 uninterrupted footprints stretching more than 50m. Their diameter measured 1.2m. Englich and his team found the impressions while excavating at the quarry in the town of Rehburg-Loccum near Hanover on Wednesday. Englich said the elephant-like tracks were stomped into the ground sometime between 135 and 145 million years ago by a sauropod — a class of heavy dinosaurs with long necks and tails.
ARGENTINA
Treasures to head home
The government will return thousands of stolen archeological pieces to South American neighbors, President Cristina Fernandez said on Saturday. “We are doing something unusual, really special: restoring cultural wealth to other countries, in this case Ecuador and Peru. We are returning to them more than 4,000 pieces that had been stolen and have been recovered,” she said at the National Museum of Fine Art in Buenos Aires. “The world we live in is one in which great powers fight to control the cultural riches of other people. One can see in the great museums of the world pieces from Greece, Syria, Egypt, Asia and even Latin America, and which have not been returned.” Fernandez’s office did not describe the pieces in question or from whom and when they were seized.
COLOMBIA
Cuban doctors protest
About 100 Cuban doctors who deserted a humanitarian mission in Venezuela and have been stranded for months in Colombia seeking entry into the US are staging a protest in Bogota to draw attention to their plight. They say they fear the delays in processing their visa requests under a 2006 program aimed at luring Cuba’s medical talent could be a sign that US President Barack Obama is seeking to end the incentive as part of his campaign to normalize relations with Havana.
CHINA
Massive manhunt launched
Police in Hunan Province have launched a manhunt for a man accused of fatally stabbing his estranged wife and eight others. Xinhua news agency said the attacks occurred on Saturday in Longshan County. It said four people were injured. A news Web site in Hunan, rednet.cn, yesterday said that about 400 police officers were mobilized to find the suspect, identified as Wang Wensheng.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
Africa has established the continent’s first space agency to boost Earth observation and data sharing at a time when a more hostile global context is limiting the availability of climate and weather information. The African Space Agency opened its doors last month under the umbrella of the African Union and is headquartered in Cairo. The new organization, which is still being set up and hiring people in key positions, is to coordinate existing national space programs. It aims to improve the continent’s space infrastructure by launching satellites, setting up weather stations and making sure data can be shared across
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