UNITED STATES
Dog returns after 10 years
A Pennsylvania family has been reunited with its dog 10 years after it went missing. Debra Suierveld and her family assumed that their dog Abby had died after she ran away in 2008 from their home in Apollo. Decade-old sadness turned to joy yesterday, when Suierveld received word that someone had found the dog. George Speiring said that the black Labrador mix showed up on his front porch in Lower Burrell, 16km west of Apollo. Speiring contacted Animal Protectors of Allegheny Valley, which discovered the dog’s microchip and was able to contact Suierveld.
POLAND
Israel blasts Holocaust bill
The Israeli embassy in Warsaw on Friday said that it has observed a “wave of anti-Semitic statements” in Poland, as a diplomatic row rages over a new bill regarding the Holocaust and the definition of Nazi death camps. The senate on Thursday passed the controversial bill that had been meant to defend the country’s image abroad, but which instead provoked Israel’s anger and drew concern from the US. The legislation, which still needs the president’s signature to take effect, was introduced to stop people from erroneously describing Nazi German death camps as Polish. However, Israel has expressed concern that the bill could serve to deny the involvement of individual Poles in the Holocaust.
UNITED STATES
Cosmonauts bungle antenna
A record-setting Russian spacewalk on Friday ended with a critical antenna in the wrong position outside the International Space Station. NASA’s Mission Control reported that the antenna was still working. It is used for communications with Russia’s Mission Control outside Moscow. The trouble arose toward the end of the more than eight-hour spacewalk — the longest-ever by Russians — after Russian Commander Alexander Misurkin and Anton Shkaplerov replaced an electronics box to upgrade the antenna. The pair watched in dismay as the antenna got hung up on the Russian side of the complex and could not be extended properly.
LIBYA
Refugees feared drowned
About 90 people are feared drowned after a smugglers’ boat carrying mostly Pakistani refugees capsized off Libya’s coast early on Friday, the UN’s migration agency said. Ten bodies have washed ashore near the Libyan town of Zuwara following the tragedy in the early morning, International Organization for Migration spokeswoman Olivia Headon said, citing information from its partner agencies. “We are told that two survivors swam to shore and one person was rescued by a fishing boat,” Headon said by telephone from Tunis to reporters at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland. We are working to get more details on the [capsizing] and where the survivors are so that we can assist them better.”
FRANCE
Five killed in chopper crash
Five army officers were killed on Friday after two training helicopters crashed into each other near a lake in the country’s south, officials said, one of the deadliest such accidents involving the country’s armed forces in recent years. The collision took place near the lake of Carces, about 50km northwest of the resort of Saint-Tropez, just a few minutes after takeoff at 8:30am. All three people aboard one aircraft and the two in the other died in the crash, Marseille Prosecutor Xavier Tarabeux said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
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