MALAYSIA
Hundreds arrested in probe
Police on Saturday said they have arrested hundreds of suspects as part of an investigation into child abuse at care homes run by an Islamic conglomerate. In what is believed to be the worst such case to hit the country in decades, police said they had arrested 355 people, including religious studies teachers and caregivers, and rescued more than 400 children. At the heart of the investigation is the Global Ikhwan Service and Business (GISB) group, which has long been controversial for its links to the banned al-Arqam sect. Police said they had arrested GISB leader Nasiruddin Ali along with 30 other members of the group after carrying out raids on scores of premises, including charity homes, businesses and religious schools. Medical screenings show that at least 13 children suffered sexual abuse, Police Inspector-General Razarudin Husain has said.
UNITED STATES
Four killed in shooting
Four people have died and more than 20 were wounded in a shooting in a nightlife area in Birmingham, Alabama, police and news reports said on Saturday. “We believe that multiple shooters fired multiple shots on a group of people” in the Five Points South neighborhood just after 11pm, Birmingham Police officer Truman Fitzgerald told local media. There were “dozens of gunshot victims” and at least four had “life-threatening” injuries, AL.com reported, quoting Fitzgerald. Two men and a woman were pronounced dead at the scene, while a fourth victim died at a local hospital, he said. There were no immediate arrests, police said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Gray seal turns 50
A gray seal named Sheba, the grand dame of the Cornish Seal Sanctuary, was on Saturday celebrated for her 50th birthday, far surpassing the lifespan of a seal in the wild and possibly being the oldest in captivity. “Reaching 50 is a huge milestone, not just for Sheba, but for everyone here who has been part of her journey,” said Tamara Cooper, curator at the facility in southwest England. In September 1974, Ken Jones found Sheba on a Cornwall beach with a head injury and nasty eye infection and took her home where he and his wife rehabilitated seals in a pool. As Sheba grew, so did the rescue operation, moving from Jones’ backyard to the Helford River in Gweek and expanding to rehabilitate more than 70 seal pups a year. Sheba’s condition, including loss of vision, prevented her return to the sea. Seals typically survive 25 to 30 years in the wild, while females in captivity can live to 40 and males to about 30, Cooper said.
GUINEA
Research center ransacked
People living near a chimpanzee research center on Friday attacked the facility after a woman said one of the animals had killed her infant, the center’s managers said. An angry crowd ransacked the building, destroying and setting fire to equipment including drones, computers and more than 200 documents, the managers said. Eyewitnesses said the crowd was reacting to the news that the mutilated body of an infant had been found 3km from the Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve. The child’s mother, Seny Zogba, told Reuters she was working in a cassava field when a chimpanzee came up from behind, bit her and pulled her baby into the forest. Local ecologist Alidjiou Sylla said the dwindling supply of food in the reserve was pushing the animals to leave the protected area more frequently, increasingly the likelihood of attacks.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
Millions of dollars have poured into bets on who will win the US presidential election after a last-minute court ruling opened up gambling on the vote, upping the stakes on a too-close-to-call race between US Vice President Kamala Harris and former US president Donald Trump that has already put voters on edge. Contracts for a Harris victory were trading between 48 and 50 percent in favor of the Democrat on Friday on Interactive Brokers, a firm that has taken advantage of a legal opening created earlier this month in the country’s long running regulatory battle over election markets. With just a month
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
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