AUSTRALIA
Six arrested over drug haul
Police arrested six people allegedly linked to a US-based syndicate after what authorities on Friday said was the largest single seizure of methamphetamine in the US and the biggest drug haul bound for Australia. US Customs and Border Protection said 1,728kg of the drug were seized last month at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex, along with smaller amounts of cocaine and heroin. The drugs were hidden in metal boxes labeled as loudspeakers. Authorities in Melbourne said the shipment was bound for Australia and would have provided about 17 million hits of the substance also known as ice.
CHINA
New swine fever outbreak
Officials in Beijing have reported a new outbreak of African swine fever that is threatening the country’s vital pork industry. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Friday reported that the disease had been detected on a farm in Yongzhou in Hunan Province, where 4,600 pigs were being raised. Although just 171 of the pigs had died and 270 were found sick, ministry regulations require all pigs on an affected farm must be culled and disposed of, and the area quarantined and decontaminated.
RUSSIA
Google deletes banned links
News reports say that Google has agreed with authorities to delete links to Web sites banned in the nation. The daily Vedomosti on Thursday reported that Google has reached an agreement with state media oversight agency Roskomnadzor to regularly receive updated lists of banned sites and delete links to them upon review. The newspaper said that Google has already removed about 70 percent of the banned Web sites from its search results. The RIA Novosti news agency quoted Roskomnadzor as saying it has established a “constructive dialogue” with Google. In December last year, Roskomnadzor fined Google 500,000 rubles (US$7,643 at the current exchange rate) for failing to delete links to the banned sites. It threatened to cut access to Google if it failed to comply with the demand. “We’re committed to enabling access to information for the benefit of our users in Russia and around the world,’” Google spokesman Nu Wexler said.
INDIA
Methanol in liquor kills 39
Police said 39 people have died and another 27 have fallen sick from drinking spurious liquor containing toxic methanol in several villages. Senior police officer Ashok Kumar said 26 died in two separate incidents in Uttar Pradesh State, while 13 others died in the neighboring state of Uttarakhand. Victims consumed liquor during a customary feast, Kumar said. Police have arrested eight suspected bootleggers, while the provincial governments have suspended 35 officials, including 12 police.
GERMANY
Hilter paintings up for sale
Five paintings attributed to Adolf Hitler were to be auctioned off yesterday in Nuremberg, sparking anger that the Nazi memorabilia market is alive and well. Nuremberg Mayor Ulrich Maly told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung that the sale was “in bad taste.” Among the items to go under the hammer were a mountain lake view with a starting price of 45,000 euro (US$51,010) and a wicker armchair with a swastika presumed to have belonged to Hitler.
SPAIN
Trains collide head-on
Two passenger trains on Friday evening rammed head-on into each other on a track near Barcelona, killing one person and injuring about 100 others, most of them slightly, authorities said. The commuter trains collided between the towns of Sant Vicenc de Castellet and Manresa, northwest of Barcelona, Catalan emergency services said in a tweet. Three of the injured passengers were in serious condition, but about 100 others escaped injury, officials said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Tiger killed by new mate
For 10 days, the London Zoo kept its newly arrived male Sumatran tiger Asim in a separate enclosure from Melati, the female tiger who was supposed to become his mate. Zoologists gave them time to get used to each other’s presence and smells, and waited for what they felt would be the right time to let them get together. On Friday, they put the two tigers into the same enclosure, and Asim killed Melati as shocked handlers tried in vain to intervene. It was a tragic end to hopes that the two would eventually breed as part of a Europe-wide tiger conservation program for the endangered Sumatran subspecies. “Everyone here at ZSL London Zoo is devastated by the loss of Melati and we are heartbroken by this turn of events,’’ the zoo said in a statement. Contingency plans called for handlers to use loud noises, flares and alarms to try to distract the tigers, but that did not work. They did manage to put seven-year-old Asim back in a separate paddock, but by that time Melati, 10, was already dead.
UNITED STATES
Khashoggi deadline skipped
President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday signaled it was unlikely to meet a deadline to report to Congress on whether it intends to impose sanctions on those responsible for the murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, prompting an angry backlash on Capitol Hill. Republican and Democratic lawmakers triggered a provision of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act in October last year, giving the administration 120 days to report on who was responsible for the death of Khashoggi and whether the US would impose sanctions on that person or persons. Congressional aides said they still hoped to receive a report from the White House by early next week, but the administration said Trump did not feel the need to send one. “The president maintains his discretion to decline to act on congressional committee requests when appropriate,” a senior administration official said in an e-mailed statement.
CANADA
Mosque attacker gets life
A 29-year-old who shot dead six worshipers at a Quebec mosque in the worst anti-Muslim attack in the West was given life in prison on Friday. Alexandre Bissonnette would have to wait 40 years — longer than usual — before he can apply for parole. Judge Francois Huot rejected a prosecution request for a 150-year sentence, which would have been the longest ever in the country, saying this would be a cruel and unusual punishment, but he also noted the killer’s “visceral hatred of Muslim immigrants” in his decision. Ahmed Cheddadi, who was wounded in the attack, said the sentence was appropriate in that he found it unlikely that Bissonnette would ever be released. On the evening of Jan. 29, 2017, Bissonnette burst into the mosque and unleashed a hail of bullets on the 40 men and four children who were there. Six men were killed and five were seriously injured.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
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