AUSTRALIA
Border help for Solomons
Canberra is to help the Solomon Islands build a border and patrol boat outpost, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his counterpart Manasseh Sogavare said yesterday, as they hailed their nations’ security cooperation and friendship. “Australia’s support for a border and patrol boat outpost will enhance infrastructure and security cooperation between our countries, and support Solomon Islands’ border security,” the leaders said, according to a joint statement released by Morrison’s media office. There was no information provided about potential costs of the project.
NEPAL
Former speaker arrested
Police in Kathmandu have arrested former speaker of parliament Krishna Bahadur Mahara after a female employee of the assembly accused him of rape. A police van arrived at his home late on Sunday and took him into custody after the district court ordered his arrest. Mahara, a senior member of the ruling Nepal Communist Party, has denied the allegation, but stepped down as speaker last week after the woman gave details of the alleged Sept. 29 assault to media and filed a formal complaint on Friday.
SRI LANKA
Candidates set record
A record 35 candidates yesterday filed nominations for next month’s presidential election, but President Maithripala Sirisena did not pay the mandatory deposit by Sunday’s deadline and so was ineligible to file a nomination. He was considered unlikely to defeat former defense chief Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who represents a breakaway party of Sirisena’s and has the loyalty of a majority from Sirisena’s party. A record 41 aspirants paid deposits before the deadline, but six later pulled out of the race. Rajapaksa’s main rival appears to be Sajith Premadasa, a son of president Ranasinghe Premadasa, who was assassinated in 1993 by the Tamil Tiger rebels.
INDONESIA
Quake victims still afraid
Thousands of people in the Maluku Islands are still in shelters nearly two weeks after the Sept. 26 earthquake that killed dozens of people, the central government said yesterday. Nearly 135,000 people remain in evacuation shelters and tents. Fears about aftershocks have been aggravated by a stream of hoaxes and fake news — mostly on messaging services — that warn a tsunami-generating quake was about to strike. National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo said the fake news was making a bad situation worse. “People are scared and so they chose to stay in shelters,” he said.
INDIA
Mumbai tree felling halted
The Supreme Court yesterday issued a stay order to halt the cutting of trees in Mumbai for an ambitious subway project that has sparked protests from activists opposed to the felling of about 2,700 trees to build a train parking shed. Critics say felling the trees would exacerbate Mumbai’s pollution levels. Dozens of people were detained over the weekend after trying to stop officials from cutting the trees.
AFGHANISTAN
Taliban members freed
Taliban officials on Sunday said several of the group’s members have been freed from jails, including former shadow governors, just days after a US envoy met top Taliban leaders in the Pakistani capital. The officials also said the Taliban have released three Indian engineers they had been holding, though that has yet to be confirmed.
UNITED STATES
Jimmy Carter given stitches
Former US president Jimmy Carter had a black eye and was given 14 stitches after falling on Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, but made it to an evening concert in Tennessee to rally volunteers ahead of his 36th home-building project for Habitat for Humanity. By Sunday evening, Carter, 95, was on stage at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville with his wife, Rosalynn, 92, to talk to volunteers and supporters of the building project that runs through Friday. He told the crowd that he had to go to the hospital and get 14 stitches, “but I had a No. 1 priority and that was to come to Nashville and build houses.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Diplomat’s wife a suspect
Police chiefs have written to the US embassy in London to demand that immunity be waived for a US diplomat’s wife who is a suspect in a fatal road crash. Northamptonshire Police chief constable Nick Adderley said that US authorities had been appealed to in “the strongest terms” to apply a waiver and “allow the justice process to take place.” His force is leading investigations into a collision that killed Harry Dunn, 19, on Aug. 27. Police said the teenager died after his motorbike collided with a vehicle close to Royal Air Force Croughton in Northamptonshire, a military base used by the US Air Force.
UNITED STATES
Four killed in bar shooting
Four people — among them two Mexicans — were killed and five wounded early on Sunday in a shooting at a bar in Kansas City, officials said. At the scene of the shooting, which took place at the Tequila KC bar, “we located a total of nine people that had been shot,” Kansas City police said in a statement posted on Twitter. “Four of the victims were found deceased inside of the business and five were found outside with injuries, all due to gunshots,” police said, adding that the wounded were reported to be in stable condition. According to a preliminary police investigation, an “earlier dispute” at the bar led to the shooting, and two suspects armed with handguns fled the scene.
UNITED STATES
Man admits murder spree
A homeless man who used a metal rod to bludgeon four other homeless men to death in New York was arrested holding the murder weapon covered with blood and hair, and admitted that he was the person in a video of one of the attacks, prosecutors said on Sunday. Randy Santos, 24, was arraigned on charges of murder and attempted murder for the bloody rampage that happened early Saturday in Manhattan’s Chinatown. He did not enter a plea and was ordered held without bail. Santos’ relatives told the New York Daily News he had a history of drug use since his arrival to the US from the Dominican Republic several years ago.
UNITED KINGDOM
Glastonbury sells in minutes
Tickets for the 50th Glastonbury Festival have sold out in 34 minutes, as a record number of fans tried to secure a ticket for the event at Worthy Farm next June. Co-organizer Emily Eavis confirmed that a record number of people had registered to be eligible for the sale, which started at 9am on Sunday and was finished in little over 30 minutes. A record 2.4 million people signed up to have a chance of securing a ticket. The festival confirmed that 135,000 tickets had been sold, with coach packages selling out on Thursday in 27 minutes. The ticket sale was the second-fastest in the event’s history, with only the 2014 festival selling out a few minutes more quickly.
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
‘DOWNSIZE’: The Trump administration has initiated sweeping cuts to US government-funded media outlets in a move critics said could undermine the US’ global influence US President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday began making deep cuts to Voice of America (VOA) and other government-run, pro-democracy programming, with the organization’s director saying all VOA employees have been put on leave. On Friday night, shortly after the US Congress passed its latest funding bill, Trump directed his administration to reduce the functions of several agencies to the minimum required by law. That included the US Agency for Global Media, which houses Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Asia and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. On Saturday morning, Kari Lake, a former Arizona gubernatorial and US
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
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