SRI LANKA
Chinese ship not welcome
Colombo has asked China to defer a planned visit of a Chinese survey ship to the island nation after an objection from India, a government source said yesterday. The Chinese research and survey vessel, Yuan Wang 5, was still on its way to Hambantota International Port. It is scheduled to arrive there on Thursday, Refinitiv shipping data showed. India worries that the Chinese-built and leased port of Hambantota will be used by China as a military base in India’s backyard. The US$1.5 billion port is near the main shipping route from Asia to Europe. India this year alone has provided Sri Lanka with nearly US$4 billion in support.
AUSTRALIA
The Seekers’ singer dies
Judith Durham, the Australian singing great and vocalist of The Seekers, has died aged 79. Durham released a number of solo albums, but was best known as the voice of folk music group The Seekers, who she performed with from 1963 until 1968. The band quickly rocketed to worldwide success and sold more than 50 million records, with a number of international hits including I’ll Never Find Another You, The Carnival is Over, A World of Our Own and Georgy Girl. Durham died in palliative care on Friday, Universal Music Australia and Musicoast said in a statement. Her death was a result of complications from a longstanding chronic lung disease, the statement said. Her bandmates in The Seekers — Keith Potger, Bruce Woodley and Athol Guy — said their lives had been changed forever by losing “our treasured lifelong friend and shining star.” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hailed Durham as “a national treasure and an Australian icon.”
UGANDA
LGBT group forced to close
The government has suspended the country’s leading gay rights organization, accusing it of operating illegally. The National Bureau for Non-Governmental Organizations on Friday announced that it had suspended Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) for not registering with the authorities. The executive director of SMUG, Frank Mugisha, said the suspension was “a clear witch-hunt rooted in systematic homophobia that is fueled by anti-gay and anti-gender movements.” A 2012 attempt to register SMUG with the authorities was rejected because the organization’s name was deemed “undesirable,” the bureau and the non-profit said. “The refusal to legalize SMUG’s operations... was a clear indicator that the government of Uganda and its agencies are adamant and treat Ugandan gender and sexual minorities as second-class citizens,” the non-profit said in a statement.
BRAZIL
More Dom Phillips arrests
Brazil’s federal police on Saturday arrested five more men in an investigation into the murder of British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in the Amazon rainforest in June. Police said in a statement that seven arrest warrants were issued for illegal fishing in the Vale do Javari region, the remote area close to the border with Colombia and Peru where Phillips and Pereira disappeared on June 5. Two of the seven suspects were already under arrest: Ruben Dario da Silva Villar, known as “Colombia,” and fisher Amarildo Costa de Oliveira. Police said Colombia is suspected of leading and financing an armed criminal gang involved in illegal fishing. Three of the newly arrested men, whose names were not revealed, are relatives of Amarildo and were involved in concealing the bodies of Phillips and Pereira, the police said.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
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