CHINA
Police detain 21 protesters
Police have detained 21 people involved in a protest against a planned garbage incinerator, the latest incident of environment-related unrest in the country. In a statement late on Sunday, the government of Gaoyao district in Guangdong Province’s Zhaoqing City said about 1,300 people had gathered to protest earlier in the day, which had caused traffic problems. While the protesters were dispersed by the early afternoon and there was no “drastic behavior,” 21 people have been taken in for questioning, it added. Zhaoqing police said on their official microblog that the situation had returned to normal. However, the official China Daily said there had been some violence. “The lawbreakers threw stones and bottles of mineral water at police,” propaganda official Duan Jianxin (段建新) told the newspaper. “Some police officers were injured.”
NEPAL
Summit claim challenged
Mountaineering authorities are investigating a climbing claim by an Indian couple who are accused of altering photographs of themselves on the summit of Mount Everest, an official said yesterday. Department of Tourism chief Sudarshan Dhakal said that authorities are reviewing the Everest climb made by Dinesh Rathod and his wife, Tarakeshwari, in May. They were issued climber’s certificates from the government after they presented a photograph of themselves on the 8,850m summit. The couple, who are both police officers from Pune in the Indian state of Maharastra, had also claimed they were the first Indian couple to scale Everest. However, fellow climbers said the couple never reached the summit and used someone else’s photographs to earn their climbing certificates. Another Indian climber, Satyarup Sidhantha from Bangalore, said it was his photograph that the couple altered to make it appear they were on the summit. If the accusation is found to be true, the couple would lose their certificates and be banned from climbing any mountains in Nepal.
TURKEY
Bombing suspects charged
Thirteen suspects, including 10 Turks, were on Sunday charged over the Istanbul airport suicide bombings, the deadliest of several attacks to strike Turkey’s biggest city this year, the Dogan news agency reported. The suspects, who are in police custody, were charged with belonging to a terror group, homicide and endangering the unity of the state, Dogan reported, without providing the foreigners’ nationalities. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, meanwhile, gave some new details on the probe, saying police had arrested a total of 29 to date over the attacks, including foreigners. “Everything will be unveiled in due time,” Yildirim said.
UNITED KINGDOM
UKIP leader Farage quits
The leader of Britain’s anti-European Union UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage yesterday said he would stand down after having realized his ambition of winning last month’s referendum in favor of Brexit. “I have never been, and I have never wanted to be, a career politician. My aim in being in politics was to get Britain out of the European Union,” he told reporters. “So I feel it’s right that I should now stand aside as leader of UKIP. “During the referendum campaign, I said ‘I want my country back’. What I’m saying today, is, ‘I want my life back,’ and it begins right now,” he said. He said he would continue to support the party, and continue to watch Brussels “like a hawk” during the negotiations around Britain’s exit from the EU.
AUSTRALIA
Eight charged after ‘ice’ bust
A Malaysian is among eight men charged over a seizure of the drug “ice” worth about A$275 million (US$206.75 million), authorities said yesterday. About 275kg of crystal methamphetamine were found under the floorboards of shipping containers after a tip-off, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection said. As part of a controlled operation, the containers were delivered to an industrial estate in Melbourne and seven Australians and one Malaysian, all aged between 24 and 34, were arrested. Police said they worked with Chinese authorities on the case, as they cooperate to fight criminal syndicates trafficking ice to Australia and internationally. The arrests come after 14 suspected members of an international drug ring — eight Chinese and six Malaysians — were charged in May over a A$200 million seizure of ice.
UNITED STATES
Lawmaker urges ‘step back’
Several lawmakers accused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government of human rights abuses and aggression toward its neighbors, calling for maintaining a tough line with Moscow. The exception was Representative Dana Rohrabacher. The Californian urged both Russia and the US to “take a deep breath and take a step back.” The 69-year-old, self-described “surfer Republican” has long been a lone pro-Russian voice on Capitol Hill, defending Putin and urging dialogue with the Kremlin. In spring, Rohrabacher’s position drew support from Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, who advocates giving relations with Moscow another chance. A former speechwriter for former president Ronald Reagan, 14-term Rohrabacher takes pride in having worked to weaken “our major global enemy at that time, the Soviet Union.”
UNITED STATES
Juno to begin Jupiter orbit
A solar-powered spacecraft is spinning toward Jupiter for a close encounter with the biggest planet in the solar system. NASA’s Juno spacecraft late yesterday was to fire its rocket engine to slow itself down from a speed of 250,000kph and slip into orbit around Jupiter. Juno was put on autopilot days ago, so the critical move comes without any help from ground controllers. The spacecraft’s camera and other instruments were also turned off for the arrival, so there will not be any pictures of the moment Juno reaches its destination. Scientists have promised close-up views of Jupiter’s poles, clouds and auroras during the 20-month, US$1.1 billion mission. Juno is only the second mission designed to spend time at Jupiter. Galileo, which launched in 1989, circled Jupiter for 14 years.
UNITED STATES
Clinton camp seeks ‘trust’
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign is turning to powerful advocates, chief among them President Barack Obama, to vouch for the Democratic front-runner shadowed by an FBI investigation on the brink of her nomination. Clinton herself acknowledged that she has “work to do” to earn the trust of voters after nearly four decades in public life, as she faces Trump in the general election, and she has called in help from advocates to attest to what Senator Elizabeth Warren calls her “good heart.” Today, Obama is set to join Clinton at a campaign event in battleground North Carolina meant to personalize the “I trust Hillary” theme. “Trust” is on the lips of Democrats, because it is a remarkable vulnerability that persists for Clinton.
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
‘INCREDIBLY TROUBLESOME’: Hours after a judge questioned the legality of invoking a wartime power to deport immigrants, the president denied signing the proclamation The US on Friday said it was terminating the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, giving them weeks to leave the country. US President Donald Trump has pledged to carry out the largest deportation campaign in US history and curb immigration, mainly from Latin American nations. The order affects about 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came to the US under a scheme launched in October 2022 by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, and expanded in January the following year. They would lose their legal protection 30 days after the US Department of Homeland Security’s order is published in the Federal
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