BANGLADESH
Zia to serve extra two years
A court yesterday sentenced former prime minister and opposition leader Khaleda Zia to seven years in prison for corruption, lawyers said, after she was jailed for five years in a separate case in February. The terms are to run concurrently, meaning she will spend an extra two years in jail. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has been in disarray ahead of general elections set for December after Khaleda was jailed in February for stealing funds for an orphanage. Khaleda, 72, and three aides were yesterday convicted of misappropriation of 31.5 million takas (US$371,550) for a trust when she was last prime minister, from 2001 to 2006, state prosecutors said. Her party says the charges are part of a plot to keep her and her family out of politics.
GABON
Bongo in hospital for fatigue
President Ali Bongo Ondimba has been hospitalized in Saudi Arabia because of “severe fatigue” caused by a hectic work schedule, a spokesman said. Bongo, 59, has ruled OPEC’s second-smallest oil producer since winning disputed elections in 2009 that were held months after his father, Omar Bongo, died in office. Omar Bongo was the world’s longest-serving president at the time of his death. Ali Bongo fell ill last week during a visit to Riyadh, where he was attending the Future Investment Initiative Forum and was sent to the hospital on Wednesday last week, presidential spokesman Ike Ngouoni Aila Oyouomi said on Sunday. “Doctors have ordered the president to rest,” Ngouoni said in a video sent to reporters in the capital, Libreville. “He’s feeling better.” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman visited Bongo in the hospital on Thursday to inquire about his health. The Gabonese presidency first declined to comment when Bongo failed to attend the forum, which led to rumors about his condition and whereabouts.
CHINA
Mining accident kills 21
Twenty-one miners have been confirmed dead in east China following a mining accident earlier this month that trapped 22 people, state media reported yesterday. The tunnel where the miners were working was blocked at both ends by coal after pressure caused rocks to fracture and break on Oct. 20, Xinhua news agency said. Only one miner has been rescued. Rescuers working to clear the tunnel recovered six bodies on Sunday and another two yesterday. The accident took place at a mine owned by Longyun Coal Mining Co in Yuncheng County, Shandong Province.
ALBANIA
Animals saved from ‘hell’
Police on Sunday broke open cages at a private zoo and removed 11 animals, including three lions and a bear, being kept in “hellish” conditions, animal welfare workers said. After the owner of the zoo at Fier, about 100km south of the capital, Tirana, allegedly refused to cooperate, officers forcibly entered areas where the animals were kept to allow vets access, an Agence France-Presse correspondent at the scene reported. The animals were then tranquillized to allow them to be safely transferred to Tirana zoo. “Living conditions for the animals in this zoo are absolutely horrible, it’s a hellish way of keeping animals,” Ioana Gabriela Dungler of Four Paws said. Owner Petrit Osmani, who has been running the zoo for about 15 years, strongly opposed the raid. “You don’t have the right! These animals are my children, you are taking away my children,” he protested, adding that he would lodge a complaint for violation of private property.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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