PORTUGAL
Statue selfie ends badly
A young man’s attempt to take a selfie with a statue of a 16th-century Portuguese king ended badly when the 126-year-old statue crashed to the ground and shattered, police said on Wednesday. The man, whom police did not identify, accidentally toppled Dom Sebastiao’s statue after climbing up to its pedestal outside the ornate Rossio railway station in central Lisbon just before midnight on Tuesday. He tried to flee the scene, but police caught him. He is scheduled to appear before a judge at a later date. The child-sized statue of the sad-eyed, sword-wielding king stood in a niche between two horseshoe-shaped arches at the entrance to the station. Completed in 1890, the station is a protected monument.
AUSTRALIA
Midnight Oil to reform
Australian rock band Midnight Oil, known for their intense live performances and political activism, yesterday announced they are reforming for gigs at home and overseas. The Oils had worldwide hits in the late 1980s and early 1990s with Beds are Burning and Blue Sky Mine before disbanding in 2002 when frontman Peter Garrett entered politics. Known as much for his bald head and lanky frame as his distinctive vocals, he became environment minister in the then-Labor government before quitting in 2013. “We know it’s been a while, but we wanted to tell you that the five of us are finally making plans to get together again for some gigs next year,” the band said on their Web site. “We’re looking forward to hopefully playing overseas and touring our homeland for the first time since 2002.” Garrett also said he would be releasing a solo album, having begun writing songs again while working on his recently published memoir.
INDIA
Bus falls into dry river bed
A passenger bus fell into a dry river bed after crashing through the railing of a bridge in central India, killing 16 people, police said. Police said the crash occurred on Wednesday night when the bus driver lost control of the vehicle as he tried to avoid hitting a motorbike rider at a sharp bend on the road in Balrampur district of Chhattisgarh. Police officer R.S. Nayak yesterday said that 14 people died on the spot and two later in a hospital. More than 50 injured were hospitalized, 14 of them in critical condition, Nayak said. Bus accidents are common in India, due mainly to rash driving, vehicle overcrowding, badly maintained roads and aged vehicles. About 240,000 people die in road accidents every year, according to India’s Ministry of Transportation.
BANGLADESH
Death sentence upheld
Bangladesh’s Supreme Court yesterday upheld the death sentence of top Islamist party leader Motiur Rahman Nizami for war crimes, paving the way for his execution within days. Nizami, head of Bangladesh’s biggest Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, was convicted of murder, rape and orchestrating the killing of intellectuals during the country’s 1971 independence struggle. “We’re satisfied. Now there is no bar to execute him unless he seeks clemency from the president and the president pardons him,” Bangladeshi Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said after the Supreme Court dismissed Nizami’s final appeal. Clemency has never been granted to a convicted war criminal in Bangladesh, and the 73-year-old is likely to be hanged within days. Security has been stepped up in Dhaka, already tense after a string of killings of secular and liberal activists and religious minorities by suspected Islamist militants.
SPAIN
Tiens team US$8m holiday
About 2,500 employees of a Chinese conglomerate arrived in Spain on Wednesday for an all-paid holiday complete with a giant paella and sangria party, in a trip hailed as helping the ailing local economy. Tiens Group Co (天獅集團) said it had booked 1,650 hotel rooms, 70 buses and four high-speed trains for the one-week tour of Spain which takes in Madrid, the central city of Toledo and Barcelona, costing a grand total of 7 million euros (US$8 million). In a statement, Tiens said the mainly Chinese workers would be treated to a giant paella and sangria party in the Spanish capital and a flamenco show.
UNITED STATES
Game Hall of Fame finalists
Last year, Super Mario Bros and Pong were among the first inductees to the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Today, this year’s class will be revealed. The National Museum of Play, Rochester, opened the hall last year to pay homage to all electronic games — arcade, console, computer, handheld and mobile. This year’s finalists were announced in March and the winners were selected on the advice of journalists, academics and others familiar with the history of video games and their role in society. The finalists were: Sonic the Hedgehog, Space Invaders, John Madden Football, Elite, Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto III, The Legend of Zelda, Minecraft, Nurburgring, The Oregon Trail, Pokemon Red and Green, Sid Meier’s Civilization, The Sims, Street Fighter II and Tomb Raider.
TURKEY
Rocket hits border town
Two rockets fired from Islamic State-held (IS) territory in Syria yesterday hit a Turkish border town, slightly wounding one person, a local mayor said. The town of Kilis, which stands at the border in southern Turkey, has been repeatedly targeted by Islamic State rockets which have killed 19 people since the start of the year. NATO member Turkey has routinely returned fire, destroying Islamic State gun positions and killing 370 militants, the state-run Anadolu Agency said this week.
UNITED STATES
Two dead in shooting
A man dismissed last month from a Houston-area transportation company stormed into the facility and opened fire on Wednesday, fatally shooting a former co-worker and injuring two others before turning the gun on himself, saying his life had been ruined, sheriff’s officials said. The man was armed with a shotgun and a pistol when he arrived at the Knight Transportation office in Katy, Texas, according to Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman. The sheriff said the man “parked right outside the building and came straight in.” The gunman fatally shot one man, who was found dead at the scene by responding officers. Two other workers were injured by shrapnel or other debris from the gunfire, and both were treated at the scene, Gonzales said.
ARGENTINA
Missing persons trial begins
The former head of Argentina’s air force and two ex-subordinates are on trial for alleged abduction and disappearance of activists during the South American nation’s 1976 to 1983 dictatorship. Omar Graffigna, who today is 90 years old, is accused of abducting activist couple Patricia Roisinblit and Jose Manuel Perez Rojo in 1978. Roisinblit was eight months pregnant when she, Perez Rojo, and a 15-month-old child were taken to a clandestine detention center. What happened to the couple is unknown.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
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