AUSTRALIA
Surfer mauled by shark
A surfer was severely mauled by a shark off Scotts Head Beach, officials said yesterday. The 36-year-old suffered a severe injury to his lower right leg, a New South Wales Ambulance spokesman said. “He had five deep lacerations and he suffered a lot of blood loss.” He was in the water with several other surfers when he disappeared, Surf Life Saving NSW said. “One of them has seen him disappear under the water, with a flume of water spraying up and then the victim has lifted his arm up to indicate he was having a problem,” Surf Life Saving spokeswoman Donna Wishart told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
BANGLADESH
Opposition roundup decried
The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party yesterday said nearly 2,000 of its supporters have been arrested on trumped-up charges in a crackdown aimed at derailing its campaign just weeks from a general election. At least 1,972 party officials and grassroots members have been detained since the election was announced last month and most are still being held, it said. At least 11 candidates had also been detained before today’s start of official campaigning, it said.
PAKISTAN
Six hurt in Karachi blast
Police say a blast late on Saturday night targeting a religious gathering of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement wounded six people in Karachi. No one has claimed responsibility and authorities say all of the wounded are listed in stable condition. The movement party represents the Urdu-speaking population and its two factions have an uneasy relationship with each other.
MOROCCO
Cocaine haul seized
Authorities on Saturday said that they had seized more than 1 tonne of cocaine and detained seven people suspected of smuggling the narcotic from South America. The Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation said the cocaine was found in a truck along with two dinghies near the port city of El Jadida, according to a statement carried by the official Maghreb Arab Press agency. Seven citizens were arrested “for their alleged links to a transnational criminal network involved in the international trafficking of cocaine between Morocco, Latin America and Europe,” it said. Initial information suggested the drugs had been shipped on a commercial vessel before being transferred onto a fishing boat and brought ashore, officials said.
NIGERIA
Three killed in firefight
Soldiers intercepted a column of Boko Haram fighters on Friday near a military base in the northeast, triggering a fierce battle that killed three civilians and injured a soldier, security sources said. A member of a civilian militia said the militants fired at troops with anti-aircraft guns and rocket-propelled grenades during the clash in Jakana village, about 30km from the Borno state capital, Maiduguri. “It was an intense fight. Our troops saw them passing near the village and confronted them,” a senior military officer said. “The terrorists were obviously heading toward the bush to congregate and launch an attack somewhere.”
KENYA
IED blast injures three
Three people were injured by an explosion on a highway in the northeast on Saturday. “There was an IED [improvised explosive device] incident ... involving a civilian truck ferrying merchandise,” said Joseph Kanyiri, a government administrator in the area,
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
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