AFGHANISTAN
Kabul, Taliban differ on talks
State Minister for Peace Affairs Abdul Salam Rahimi yesterday said the government would hold its first-ever direct talks with the Taliban within two weeks, but the insurgents quickly denied any such meeting was planned. Rahimi said that a 15-member government delegation would meet with the Taliban in Europe, without elaborating, but Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said “there has been no agreement on such a meeting and that has not been coordinated with Taliban.”
SYRIA
IS claims suicide attack
The Islamic State (IS) group has claimed responsibility for an attack that killed six soldiers in Daraa Province. The group said it was responsible for a “suicide operation” on Saturday, during which one of its fighters sprayed soldiers with machine-gun fire before detonating an “explosive vest.” The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, said six soldiers were killed and several other people wounded. It said a bomber riding a motorcycle blew himself up at a military checkpoint.
MYANMAR
Landslide kills 13 at mine
At least 13 jade mine workers and security guards were yesterday killed in a landslide, authorities said, as rescuers frantically searched for more victims. The fire services department said on Facebook that the accident happened in the early morning in Hpakant township in the north. “We have sent two injured men and the dead bodies of 13 men” to a local hospital, the department said. A police officer on the scene said that the upper part of a mine collapsed and fell about 200m onto those sleeping below. Heavy rains pounded the area over the past week, the officer said.
NIGERIA
WHO secures Ebola funds
WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus on Saturday said a shortage in funding to halt the spread of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was finally being filled. Tedros told a summit meeting in Abuja that several countries had renewed pledges of financial aid after the Ebola outbreak was declared an international emergency earlier this month. “Especially in the last couple of weeks there is renewed commitment to finance the shortages we were facing,” he said. The support raised hopes the epidemic could be restrained, he said.
AUSTRALIA
Abortion to be decriminalized
Abortion could soon be decriminalized nationwide, with the last holdout state set to consider a new law this week that would remove terminations from the criminal code. Under legislation dating back to 1900, women in New South Wales who have abortions and their doctors can be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. The procedure is only considered legal if the doctor believes the woman’s physical or mental health is in danger.
VIETNAM
Rhino horns seized
Fifty-five pieces of rhino horn were found encased in plaster at an airport in Hanoi, authorities said yesterday. The 125kg haul of rhino horn discovered at Noi Bai airport on Thursday was found after the carefully disguised shipment aroused suspicion. Police used rods to break the casts apart. “It took half a day to break them open,” a security source said. It was not immediately clear which African country the shipment originated from.
ISRAEL
Missile inteceptor tested
The Ministry of Defense and the US successfully carried out tests of a ballistic missile interceptor that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday said provides protection against potential threats from Iran. The tests of the Arrow-3 system were carried out in Alaska and it successfully intercepted targets above the atmosphere, the ministry said in a statement. “The flight tests were conducted in Alaska in order to test capabilities that may not be tested in Israel,” it said. Netanyahu said “today Israel has the ability to act against ballistic missiles that could be launched against us from Iran or anywhere else.”
ITALY
US teens arrested in murder
Two US teenagers who were classmates at a California high school spent a second night in a Rome jail on Saturday after they were interrogated for hours about their alleged roles in the murder of a policeman on Friday. Investigators on Saturday said in written statements that the pair had confessed to their roles in the grisly slaying. Authorities identified the two as Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, 18, and Finnegan Lee Elder, 19, and said they were born in San Francisco. Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega, a member of the Carabinieri paramilitary corps, was stabbed eight times, allegedly by Elder, leaving him bleeding on a street close to the teens’ hotel near Rome’s Tiber River. The 35-year-old officer had just returned to duty a few days earlier from his honeymoon. Investigators said Cerciello Rega and another Carabinieri officer were in plainclothes when they confronted the Americans about 3am on Friday in the wake of a drug deal gone wrong.
MEXICO
Honduras job pact inked
A scheme to create 20,000 jobs in Honduras has been agreed between Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in an attempt to stem the flow of migrants toward the US. The two men met on Saturday in Veracruz to sign an agreement to extend a development program to Honduras, which includes a tree-planting scheme. Called “Sowing Life,” the scheme pays farmers a small monthly stipend to plant trees and crops. Mexico City signed a deal with El Salvador last month to introduce the same project there.
UNITED STATES
Minnie Mouse’s voice dies
Russi Taylor, Disney’s official voice of Minnie Mouse for more than three decades, has died, the company announced on Saturday. She was 75. “Minnie Mouse lost her voice with the passing of Russi Taylor,” Bob Iger, chairman and chief executive of The Walt Disney Co, said in a statement. “We take comfort in the knowledge that her work will continue to entertain and inspire for generations to come.” Taylor died in Glendale, California, on Friday, the company said. In 1991, she married Wayne Allwine, who had been the voice of Mickey Mouse since 1977. He died in 2009. Taylor was the voice of other Disney characters, as well as Strawberry Shortcake and Pebbles Flintstone.
UNITED STATES
Police, FBI hunt for toddler
The Medford Police Department in Oregon and the FBI are searching for a two-year-old boy whose parents were involved in an apparent murder-suicide in Montana. Aiden Salcido is the son of Daniel Salcido and Hannah Janiak, who were found dead on Wednesday in Kalispell, after police stopped them following a chase because they had felony burglary warrants for their arrest.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
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