RUSSIA
Navalny detained on release
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was yesterday detained on his release from prison after serving a 30-day sentence for an unauthorized protest, his spokesperson said. “Alexei Navalny was detained outside the detention center,” Kira Yarmysh wrote on Twitter, adding that the politician was taken to a central Moscow police station. Yarmysh said Navalny was accused of violating a different protest law and faces up to 20 days in prison. He is due to appear in court later in the day, she said. Navalny was in jail for a month for a protest he organized on Jan. 28, violating strict laws that forbid any public event without city hall’s authorization.
GERMANY
Spy head made an adviser
Leaders of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition on Sunday reached a deal to resolve a standoff over the future of the head of the domestic BfV spy agency, Hans-Georg Maassen. The coalition leaders agreed to make Maassen a “special adviser” at the Ministry of the Interior with responsibility for “European and international issues,” instead of deputy minister. He is to remain at his current pay level. A deputy interior minister and expert on construction issues, Social Democrat Gunther Adler, will now keep his job rather than make way for Maassen.
RUSSIA
Leak reveals spy tactics
A leak of government data about the suspects in the Salisbury, England, poisoning may provide a rare insight into how the military intelligence agency provides cover identities for its agents abroad. Investigative journalists have unearthed what appears to be a series of passports with similar numbers belonging to suspected intelligence officers, including the Salisbury suspects Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov. The passport holders include a former military attache who was expelled from Poland for espionage in 2014 and is alleged to be tied to an attempted coup in Montenegro.Other men with similar passport numbers identified by the St Petersburg-based Fontanka news site listed their address as Khoroshevskoye Shosse 76 B, the Moscow headquarters of the Main Directorate. Their travel records could be tied to recent diplomatic incidents in Europe and, in at least one case, matched the details of a foreign trip taken by President Vladimir Putin, Fontanka said.
ITALY
Artist hit with painting
A man has hit performance artist Marina Abramovic on the head with a painting at a Florence museum. Palazzo Strozzi director Arturo Galansino tweeted that Abramovic was unhurt in the attack on Sunday in the courtyard of the palazzo, which is hosting a retrospective about her. Media said the wood-framed painting is a portrait of Abramovic done by the attacker. Galansino said Abramovic, who uses her body as an art medium, wanted to ask the man why he did it.
UNITED KINGDOM
Key ring sets off alarm
A man, who on Sunday sparked an alert at the visitors’ entrance to Buckingham Palace when he was arrested for being in possession of a stun gun, just had a key ring, the Metropolitan Police said. The 38-year-old tourist from the Netherlands was detained at the palace at lunchtime after he was found with a “Taser-type device,” but was released without charge a few hours later. “Officers were satisfied that his possession of the device — which was low-powered and part of a key ring — was a genuine error on his part, and that he posed no threat,” police said.
INDIA
Injured sailor rescued
A French ship yesterday rescued an injured navy commander in the southern Indian Ocean during a round-the-world solo Golden Globe Race, officials said. Minister of Defense Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted that it was “a sense of relief to know that naval officer” Abhilash Tomy, 39, was “rescued by the French fishing vessel. He’s conscious and doing okay.” She said the ship would shift Tomy to a nearby island yesterday evening and that later an Indian navy frigate would take him to Mauritius for medical attention. Australian officials earlier said the French fisheries patrol boat Osiris headed 740km to Tomy after his yacht, Thuriya, lost its mast in a storm on Friday in Australia’s search and rescue zone and he said he had suffered severe back injuries.
CHINA
New outbreak of swine fever
Inner Mongolia has reported a new outbreak of African swine fever, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said yesterday, as authorities struggle to contain the highly contagious disease. A slaughterhouse in the capital, Hohhot, reported the outbreak, adding that four pigs were infected with African swine fever and two had died.
INDONESIA
Rescued teen returns home
A teenager has survived about seven weeks adrift at sea after the floating wooden fish trap he was employed to mind slipped its moorings. The parents of 18-year-old Aldi Novel Adilang and the Indonesian Consulate in Osaka, Japan, said he was rescued by a Panamanian-flagged vessel off Guam on Aug. 31 and returned home earlier this month. Adilang was employed as the keeper of a rompong — a wooden fishing raft with a hut on top — moored about 125km off the coast of North Sulawesi.
Pakistani police yesterday said a father shot dead his daughter after she refused to delete her TikTok account. In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces. “The girl’s father had asked her to delete her TikTok account. On refusal, he killed her,” a police spokesperson said. Investigators said the father killed his 16-year-old daughter on Tuesday “for honor,” the police report said. The man was subsequently arrested. The girl’s family initially tried to “portray the murder as a suicide” said police in
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
The Russian minister of foreign affairs warned the US, South Korea and Japan against forming a security partnership targeting North Korea as he visited the ally country for talks on further solidifying their booming military and other cooperation. Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov spoke on Saturday in Wonsan City, North Korea, where he met North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un and conveyed greetings from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kim during the meeting reaffirmed his government’s commitment to “unconditionally support and encourage all measures” taken by Russia in its conflict with Ukraine. Pyongyang and Moscow share identical views on “all strategic issues in
‘FALSE NARRATIVE’: China and the Solomon Islands inked a secretive security pact in 2022, which is believed to be a prelude to building a Chinese base, which Beijing denied The Australian government yesterday said it expects China to spy on major military drills it is conducting with the US and other allies. It also renewed a charge — denounced by Beijing as a “false narrative” — that China wants to establish a military base in the South Pacific. The comments by a government minister came as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made a six-day visit to China to bolster recently repaired trade ties. More than 30,000 military personnel from 19 nations are set to join in the annual Talisman Sabre exercises from yesterday across Australia and Papua New Guinea. “The Chinese military have
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