PAKISTAN
Tribal clashes leave 15 dead
Clashes between two tribes feuding over the ownership of a coal mine in the country’s remote northwest left 15 men dead and several wounded, police said yesterday. The fighting erupted on Monday between the Sunny Khel and Zarghun Khel tribes in Dara Adam Khel, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province along the border with Afghanistan. The men were armed with handguns and assault rifles, and the fighting lasted for hours, local police official Munawar Khan said. Security forces were summoned to bring the situation under control, and Khan said that order was later restored. The two tribes have been fighting over the ownership rights for the mine since 2019. Khan said it was unclear what triggered the latest clashes, and officers were still investigating.
INDIA
Cough syrups may be tested
The national drug regulator has proposed testing cough syrups in government laboratories before they are exported, media outlet News18.com reported yesterday, after Indian-made syrups were linked to the deaths of at least 70 children in Gambia and 19 in Uzbekistan last year. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare received the proposal from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation this month and is considering it, the news Web site quoted an unidentified ministry official as saying. “The proposal is to test the finished goods at government labs before exporting,” the official told News18.com. The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
HONG KONG
Libraries must censor: Lee
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee (李家超) yesterday said that public libraries need to ensure books do not contravene local laws, amid criticism that many books and videos related to China’s Tiananmen Square Massacre have been removed from library shelves. “These books are accessible by people in private book shops. If they want to buy, they can buy,” Lee told reporters, when asked about the removal of literature and documentaries about the massacre from public libraries. “What libraries need to do is to ensure that there’s no breach of any laws in Hong Kong, including of course, copyrights etc, and also if they spread any kind of messages that are not in the interests of Hong Kong,” Lee said, without elaborating. Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper reported that more than 40 percent of video materials and books involving “political themes” had been removed from public libraries since 2020.
CHINA
Comedian probed for Xi joke
A Chinese comedian who joked about two dogs embodying the work ethic of one of President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) military slogans has been suspended from work, after attracting the ire of strident online nationalists. Beijing authorities on Monday launched a probe into leading talk show company, Shanghai Xiaoguo Culture Media Co, after a growing chorus of social media posts said that Li Haoshi (李昊石) had insulted the People’s Liberation Army. In an audio clip of Li’s performance posted to Sina Weibo, the comedian, known as House, likened the behavior of two wild dogs he had observed to “having a good work style, being able to fight and win battles” — an eight-character slogan Xi used during a 2013 People’s Liberation Army national legislative session. “I will take on all the responsibility for this, stop all my performances, deeply reflect and re-learn,” Li wrote on Sina Weibo. China enacted a law in 2021 criminalizing insults against military personnel.
GERMANY
Five jailed for jewelry heist
The Dresden state court yesterday convicted five men over the theft of more than 100 million euros (US$109 million) of 18th-century jewels from a Dresden museum in 2019. They were given prison sentences of between four years and four months and six years and three months, news agency dpa reported. One defendant was acquitted. The court ruled that the five — aged 24 to 29 — were responsible for the break-in at the Green Vault Museum on Nov. 25, 2019, and the theft of 21 pieces of jewelry containing more than 4,300 diamonds, with a total insured value of at least 113.8 million euros. They were convicted of particularly aggravated arson in combination with dangerous bodily injury, theft with weapons, damage to property and intentional arson. The men laid a fire just before the break-in to cut the power supply to street lights outside the museum, and also set fire to a car in a nearby garage before fleeing to Berlin. They were caught several months later.
MEXICO
Tourist dies in knife attack
An Argentine tourist who was attacked on Friday by a man with a machete has died of his wounds, the district attorney’s office reported on Monday. The victim was with a couple of Argentine friends at a restaurant in the Lagunas de Chacahua in Oaxaca, when they were attacked on Friday. He “was transferred to Mexico City, where he died this Monday afternoon as a result of the injuries inflicted,” the prosecutors’ office said in a statement. His friends were also wounded, but their injuries were not life-threatening. The attacker was detained and is today to appear before a judge to be charged with aggravated homicide, the prosecutors’ office added. The possible motive for the attack was not immediately known.
ITALY
US$880m of cocaine seized
Police yesterday said they had seized 2,700kg of highly pure cocaine hidden in two refrigerated containers containing bananas that had been shipped from Ecuador. The haul found in the Calabrian port of Gioia Tauro is estimated to be worth more than 800 million euros, the Guardia di Finanza police said in a statement. The shipment had come from Guayaquil in Ecuador and its final destination was Armenia, via the Black Sea port of Batumi in Georgia. The drugs were discovered in the 12m containers thanks to specialized scanners, helped by a sniffer dog named Joel, the police added. Police said they had found a further 600kg of cocaine in the past few days in fruit containers from Ecuador being shipped through Gioia Tauro. These consignments had been destined for other parts of Italy, Croatia, Greece and Georgia, they added.
NIGERIA
Chef cooks for 100 hours
A chef has spent 100 hours preparing meals non-stop, aiming to set a Guinness World Record for the longest cooking session by an individual. Lagos chef Hilda Bassey has captivated the country with her marathon cooking, which started on Thursday and ended on Monday night. President Muhammadu Buhari and several politicians and celebrities congratulated Bassey, while cheering supporters camped outside an events center to witness the 27-year-old chef preparing a mix of local and foreign dishes, from jollof rice to pasta and akara, which is made from bean flour. The current longest cooking record is held by Indian chef Lata Tondon, who set a time of 87 hours and 45 minutes in 2019. Bassey’s time has to be certified by Guinness World Record officials before it can be made official.
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
‘VERY DIRE’: This year’s drought, exacerbated by El Nino, is affecting 44 percent of Malawi’s crop area and up to 40 percent of its population of 20.4 million In the worst drought in southern Africa in a century, villagers in Malawi are digging for potentially poisonous wild yams to eat as their crops lie scorched in the fields. “Our situation is very dire, we are starving,” 76-year-old grandmother Manesi Levison said as she watched over a pot of bitter, orange wild yams that she says must cook for eight hours to remove the toxins. “Sometimes the kids go for two days without any food,” she said. Levison has 30 grandchildren under her care. Ten are huddled under the thatched roof of her home at Salima, near Lake Malawi, while she boils
RSS