AUSTRALIA
Dingo review ordered
The Queensland state government yesterday ordered an urgent review into the management of dingoes on Fraser Island after a spate of attacks by the wild dogs this year. The government announced the review three days after a father rescued his toddler from a dingo’s jaws. The boy had been dragged from a parked campervan in a remote part of the island off the Queensland coast. The 14-month-old’s skull was fractured and he suffered multiple puncture wounds to his neck and head, his parents said. Queensland Minister for Environment Leeanne Enoch said that she was bringing forward a review into dingo management on the island. The number of rangers patrolling the island would be boosted, while more efforts would be made to educate visitors about the dangers of dingoes, Enoch added. The attack on the toddler is the third this year on the island, which attracts up to 400,000 visitors each year.
UNITED KINGDOM
Two arrested over killing
Two young men have been arrested over the killing of a journalist shot dead in Derry, police in Northern Ireland said on Saturday. The 18 and 19-year-old men were arrested in Derry under anti-terror laws and taken to Belfast for questioning, the police said. Journalist Lyra McKee, 29, was late on Thursday shot in the head by, police believe, dissident republicans linked to the New IRA paramilitary group as they clashed with police. “Lyra was killed by shots that were fired indiscriminately,” Detective Superintendent Jason Murphy said. “The shots were fired in a residential area at a time when there were large numbers of local people on the street including children.” The gunman showed no thought for who may have been killed or injured.”
UNITED STATES
China-linked scientists fired
A prominent cancer center in Houston, Texas, has ousted three of five scientists whom federal authorities identified as being involved in Chinese efforts to steal US research. Peter Pisters, the president of MD Anderson Cancer Center, told the Houston Chronicle that the National Institutes of Health last year wrote to the center detailing conflicts of interest and unreported foreign income by five faculty members, and gave it 30 days to respond. “As stewards of taxpayer dollars invested in biomedical research, we have an obligation to follow up,” Pisters said. The newspaper said all three are ethnically Chinese. It is not clear if any of them face federal charges or deportation.
UNITED STATES
One arrested over raid
A man suspected of involvement in a mysterious dissident group’s raid on North Korea’s embassy in Madrid in February was arrested in Los Angeles. Christopher Ahn, a former marine, was arrested and charged on Friday, a person familiar with the matter said. The specific charges against Ahn were not immediately clear. Separately, on Thursday, federal agents raided the apartment of Adrian Hong, a leader of the Free Joseon group, also known as the Cheollima Civil Defense group, which itself as a government-in-exile dedicated to toppling the Kim family dynasty in North Korea, the person said. Hong was not arrested. A Spanish police investigator in the case in Madrid on Saturday said that Ahn was identified by the Spanish police at a later stage of its investigation into the Feb. 22 raid and that an international arrest warrant was also issued against him.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
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