AUSTRALIA
Monkey thieves charged
Two men yesterday were charged with stealing rare pygmy marmosets, as a baby was reunited with its mom and the hunt continued to find its dad. Three of the monkeys were snatched from their enclosure at the Symbio Wildlife Park south of Sydney on Saturday, with police and zookeepers launching a desperate bid to locate the suckling infant. There were fears it would die if away from its mother for more than 24 hours while keepers also worried its twin would perish because their mother was too stressed to feed. After a tip-off from the public, two men, aged 23 and 26, were arrested and charged.Police found the unnamed four-week-old infant in the men’s car and a 10-month-old female, Sophia, at another address. The father, Gomez, remains missing.
Photo: EPA
NEPAL
Quake shakes nation
An earthquake with an epicenter near Mount Everest yesterday woke up people in the nation. The US Geological Survey said the earthquake had a magnitude of 5.4. The National Seismology Center said the epicenter was on the border between Ramechap and Solukhumbu districts, about 120km east of Kathmandu. Police said there were no immediate reports of casualties or damages.
PHILIPPINES
Police detonate bomb
Manila police detonated an improvised bomb found yesterday by a street sweeper in a trash bin near the US embassy, snarling morning traffic after authorities closed a portion of a major boulevard where the device was found. No one was reported hurt in the incident. Two explosions were heard as a bomb disposal unit detonated what Metropolitan Manila police chief Oscar Albayalde later described as an improvised explosive device.
JAPAN
Cyberattack investigated
The government is investigating a report that a high-level cyberattack in September — possibly involving a state actor — might have stolen information from an internal military computer network. Ministry of Defense and Ground Self-Defense Force officials said they were investigating a Kyodo News report on the attack. The hackers did not leave a detailed trail and the extent of the damage is unclear, Kyodo said, citing ministry sources. The agency said the hackers took advantage of the fact that computers at the National Defense Academy and National Defense Medical College are connected to a university network and to an internal network linking military bases. Senior military officials were quoted as saying the attack was viewed as a crisis, and staff at the ministry and in the military were temporarily banned from connecting to the Internet.
INDIA
Escaped militant recaptured
A top Sikh militant commander was recaptured by police yesterday in Delhi, a day after he was freed in a dramatic jailbreak by a gang wearing police uniforms. Harminder Singh Mintoo, who heads a Sikh separatist group — the Khalistan Liberation Force — was arrested on the outskirts of Delhi about 200km from the high-security prison in Punjab where he had been remanded on terror charges. Four other inmates who also escaped — members of a local gang jailed for murder — are still at large. Mintoo was arrested in 2014 and is still awaiting trial for terrorism offences. Three policemen were injured in the prison raid and a woman was killed on a highway a few kilometers from the prison when police opened fire on her car after the driver allegedly failed to stop at a checkpoint. Police later said she had no connection with the escapees.
CHINA
Film studio for Chongqing
The government has announced plans to build a US$2 billion film studio as part of a national push to expand its cultural influence. The studio in Chongqing will include a theme park and tourist attractions, state media reported late on Sunday. Construction is to begin early next year and is expected to cost 15 billion yuan (US$2.18 billion). Officials say they have operating agreements already with several foreign partners. Xinhua news agency said the park is to be named after the “One Belt, One Road” program.
INDONESIA
Downed pilot rescued
The pilot of an army helicopter was rescued on Sunday, three days after the aircraft crashed in North Kalimantan on Borneo, an official said yesterday, but three other crew members were found dead yesterday. The injured airman was discovered along with the wreckage of the Bell 412 helicopter. Rescuers are still looking for a fifth crew member. The helicopter went down as it was carrying supplies to a remote army post near the Malaysian border.
CHINA
Next UN boss sets goals
Incoming UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres yesterday said in Beijing that he wants the organization to be more nimble and less bureaucratic and its peacekeepers to be better trained and respectful of human rights. He said that he wants to make sure the different parts of the UN “work for the same purpose” and are subject to independent public evaluation. He also said the UN’s peacekeeping forces need to be trained to avoid violating women’s and children’s rights.
UNITED STATES
Corps mulls Dakota plans
The Army Corps of Engineers on Sunday said it had no plans to forcibly remove people protesting plans to run an oil pipeline beneath a lake near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota, despite telling them to leave by early next month. The Corps, which manages the federal land where the main camp protesting the Dakota Access pipeline is, said last week it would close public access to the area north of the Cannonball River on Monday next week. On Sunday, the agency said in a statement that it had “no plans for forcible removal” of protesters. The statement said anyone who remained would be considered unauthorized and could be subject to various citations. It also said emergency services might not be adequately provided to the area.
VENEZUELA
State announces charges
The state prosecutor on Sunday said it would charge 11 members of the military with responsibility in the death of 12 civilians following a security raid last month in the violent country’s coastal state of Miranda. President Nicolas Maduro last year launched a security campaign known as “Operation to Free the People,” or “OLP” to fight crime and gangs. Rights groups and residents say authorities have murdered innocent people, arrested thousands and destroyed private property without legally mandated court orders. In the Miranda case, 12 bodies were discovered on Friday and Saturday in a mountainous area of the state, the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement. “The state prosecutor will attribute several crimes to the arrested officials, including the violation of fundamental rights,” the statement read, adding that the 11 members of the military included a lieutenant colonel. Local media reported the bodies were discovered in a mass grave.
SPAIN
IS-linked suspects arrested
The Ministry of the Interior said that police arrested four people suspected of having links to an illegal migration network believed to have been used by the Islamic State (IS) group to move militants to Europe, including those involved in Paris attacks last year. A ministry statement said the four had links with the so-called “Syrian refugee route” that the Islamic State group is thought to have used to get militants to Europe via the Greek island of Leros in October last year.
UNITED STATES
Attorney sex rules debated
The California state bar association is overhauling ethics rules for attorneys for the first time in 30 years and some lawyers are unhappy about a proposal that would open them up to discipline for having sex with clients. California bars attorneys from coercing a client into sex or demanding sex in exchange for legal representation. Supporters of an all-out ban say the relationship between a lawyer and client is inherently unequal, so any sexual relationship is potentially coercive. However, some attorneys say it is an unjustified invasion of privacy. Another change would bring California in line with other states by subjecting prosecutors to discipline for failing to turn over evidence they know or reasonably should know would help the defense. The sex ban has divided the rules revision commission. Opponents of the ban, including the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s ethics committee, say it is unnecessary and would be struck down as an unconstitutional violation of fundamental privacy rights.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
‘MOBILIZED’: While protesters countered ICE agents, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard to ‘support the rights of Minnesotans’ to assemble Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement, although not yet deployed to city streets. There have been protests every day since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers. Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NASA on Saturday rolled out its towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as it began preparations for its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. The maneuver, which takes up to 12 hours, would allow the US space agency to begin a string of tests for the Artemis 2 mission, which could blast off as early as Feb. 6. The immense orange and white SLS rocket, and the Orion vessel were slowly wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and painstakingly moved 6.5km to Launch Pad 39B. If the
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