INDONESIA
French escapee not quitting
Indonesian authorities have placed a convicted French drug smuggler in solitary confinement after he tried to escape for a second time from a jail on the island of Lombok, a prison official said on Friday. The chief warden of Mataram prison, Tri Saptono Sambudji, said that guards caught Felix Dorfin, 35, from Bethune in northern France, as he tried to make a hole in the wall of his cell late on Sunday. Sambudji said Dorfin told authorities that he had been working on the hole for the past month, using a piece of iron wrapped with a cloth to reduce the noise. Dorfin was sentenced to death in May for smuggling 3kg of drugs to the island. A higher court later commuted his sentence to 19 years in prison. Dorfin escaped from a police detention center in January by punching holes in his cell window with help from a female police officer who received money from him. He was recaptured after 10 days on the run.
AUSTRALIA
Couple freed from Iran
An Australian travel-blogging couple who were detained in Iran on spying charges have been released and returned home, Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne said yesterday. Perth-based Jolie King and Mark Firkin had been documenting their journey from Australia to Britain on social media for the past two years, but went silent after posting updates from Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan about three months ago. They were alleged to have used a drone to take pictures of “military sites and forbidden areas”, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said last month. Payne said that the pair had been reunited with their family in Australia following “very sensitive negotiations” with Tehran. “We are extremely happy and relieved to be safely back in Australia with those we love,” the couple said in a statement.
SPAIN
Smugglers save police
Three Spanish police officers who were thrown into the sea when their boat crashed early on Friday during a high-speed chase were pulled to safety by the drug smugglers they were chasing, police said. The unexpected rescue happened after a police vessel began pursuing a speedboat “with four people on board that was suspected of transporting drugs” in waters off the southern coast of Spain, a police statement said. During the chase, the two vessels collided, causing three police officers to fall into the sea as their boat “span out of control.” Using a megaphone, a police helicopter that was hovering overhead called on those on board the speedboat to help and they pulled the three agents to safety unharmed. However, the gesture did not spare them when police found three tonnes of hashish in the water nearby.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Abbey Road’ tops charts
Classic Beatles album Abbey Road is back at No. 1 in Britain half a century after its first release, with the band breaking their own record for the longest gap between stints at the top of the charts. The band’s final studio album with its instantly recognizable zebra-crossing cover came out in September 1969. It was the UK’s best-selling album for 17 weeks, and on Friday a special 50th anniversary edition featuring unheard material took the top spot once again. “It’s hard to believe that Abbey Road still holds up after all these years, but then again it’s a bloody cool album,” tweeted band member Paul McCartney. With 49 years and 252 days since its last reign, the album has had the longest gap between UK number ones — a record previously held by the Fab Four’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
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
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