INDIA
Cow dung an online hit
With the holiday season in full swing, Indians are flocking to the online marketplace in droves. However, there is one unusual item flying off the virtual shelves: Cow-dung patties are selling like hot cakes. While the patties — cow dung mixed with hay, made mainly by women in rural areas and used to fuel fires — have long been available in India’s villages, online retailers including Amazon and eBay are now reaching out to the country’s ever-increasing urban population. Some retailers say they are offering discounts for large orders. Some customers are asking for gift wrapping. In a nation where Hindus worship cows as sacred, cow dung cakes have been used for centuries to fuel fires for cooking or Hindu rituals. Across rural India, piles of drying cow dung are ubiquitous.
MALI
Extremists kill at least 15
Islamic extremists in the north have killed at least 15 people in two attacks in the Kidal region near the border with Algeria, a jihadist group and a resident said. Ansar Dine group fighters killed 11 people in an attack on Tuareg rebels near the Algerian border in Kidal, the militants said in a statement on a jihadist Web site on Saturday. “The attack resulted in the release of mujahidin prisoners and the recovery of vehicles and weapons,” it said. Four people were killed on Friday during an ambush by Ansar Dine on a Tuareg separatist vehicle, including the younger brother of the secretary-general of the separatist group that signed a peace deal with the government in late June, said a Kidal resident who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect his security.
THAILAND
PM defends Koh Tao verdict
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha yesterday lashed out at protesters who took to the streets of Yangon at the weekend after a court sentenced two Burmese migrant workers to death for murdering two British tourists. Prayuth said critics should respect the verdict and that the nation’s justice system would not bow to public pressure. “They have the right to appeal, right? Laws all over the world have this. Or should Thai law not have this? Is it the case that we should release all people when pressured?” Prayuth told reporters before boarding a plane to the southern Thai province of Surat Thani.
CHINA
Netizens lambast reporter
The nation’s media yesterday celebrated the imminent expulsion of a French reporter accused of supporting terrorism, with a poll purporting to demonstrate overwhelming support for the decision. Beijing refused to renew Ursula Gauthier’s visa after she published an article criticizing government policies in Xinjiang, home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority and a region which regularly sees violent incidents. The government’s decision to expel Gauthier was approved by 95 percent of respondents in a poll on the Web site of the Global Times. The poll, which asked “Do you support expelling the French journalist who supports terrorism?” had more than 200,000 respondents by yesterday afternoon. Among those who disagreed, many felt that the punishment was not harsh enough: “This kind of terrorist sympathizer should be arrested and sentenced to prison,” one poster wrote. The Global Times is known for its nationalistic stance. Following the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris earlier this year it said the murders were “payback” for the West’s “historical acts of slavery and colonialism.”
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
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