BANGLADESH
Crowds flock to see tiny cow
Hundreds of people are ignoring COVID-19 restrictions and flocking to a farm near Dhaka to see a cow that its keepers say is the world’s shortest. The miniature cow, named Rani, is 51cm tall and 66cm long. It weighs 26kg and is so small it can be carried around. The managers of the farm where it is kept say they have applied to Guinness World Records to certify Rani as the world’s shortest cow. “We are very confident that this will be very smallest one,” Shikor Agro Industries executive Mohammad Salim said. The title is held by Manikyam, a cow from the Indian state of Kerala who was 61cm tall when it made it to the record books in 2014, the Guinness World Records Web site says. “Many people are coming from different places to see the mysterious cow, the smallest cow in the world, so I also have to be here to see the cow,” said Ranu Begum, a visitor. Bangladesh has extended its lockdown to Wednesday to combat a surge in COVID-19 cases led by the highly contagious Delta variant.
IRAN
Cyberattack hits ministry
The Web site of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development was on Saturday taken down by what state television said was a “cyber disruption,” a day after an apparent cyberattack on the state railway company. Computer systems of ministry staff were the subject of the attack, which resulted in the ministry’s portal and sub-portal sites becoming unavailable, state television reported. It did not give any indication of who it believed could have been behind the attack, and did not say if any ransom demand had been made. Train services had been disrupted on Friday, with hackers posting fake delay notices on station boards, state-affiliated news outlets reported. The government-run railway company said only the displays had been affected and that trains ran normally.
GERMAN
Famed war survivor dies
Esther Bejarano, a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp who used the power of music to fight antisemitism and racism in post-war Germany, has died at the age of 96. Bejarano died in the early on Saturday at the Jewish Hospital in Hamburg, the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted Helga Obens, a board member of the International Auschwitz Committee in Germany, as saying. A cause of death was not given. Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas paid tribute to Bejarano, calling her “an important voice in the fight against racism and antisemitism.” Bejarano was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943, where she volunteered to become a member of the girls’ orchestra, playing the accordion every time trains full of Jews from across Europe arrived. Bejarano would later say that music helped keep her alive in the notorious death camp. “We played with tears in our eyes,” she said in a 2010 interview with The Associated Press. “The new arrivals came in waving and applauding us, but we knew they would be taken directly to the gas chambers.” Bejarano emigrated to Israel and married Nissim Bejarano. The couple had two children before returning to Germany in 1960. After again encountering open antisemitism, Bejarano decided to become politically active, cofounding the International Auschwitz Committee in 1986. She teamed up with her children to play Yiddish melodies and Jewish resistance songs, and also with hip-hop group Microphone Mafia to spread an anti-racism message. Bejarano received numerous awards, including Germany’s Order of Merit, for her activism.
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
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
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