AUSTRALIA
Whistle-blower loses appeal
Army whistle-blower David McBride, who leaked allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan to the media, yesterday lost a court bid to have his prison sentence reduced. The three Australian Capital Territory Court of Appeal judges unanimously rejected the 61-year-old former army lawyer’s appeal against the severity of a five-year and eight-month prison sentence imposed a year ago. His “oath obliged the appellant to discharge his duties ‘according to the law,’” the judges said.
Photo: AP
UNITED KINGDOM
Thames Water fined
Thames Water yesterday was fined a record ￡122.7 million (US$165 million) over pollution and improper dividend payments, a regulator said. Water watchdog Ofwat said that an investigation into “how the company was managing its treatment works and wider wastewater network uncovered failings that have amounted to a significant breach of the company’s legal obligations.”
Photo: AP
PANAMA
State of emergency imposed
The government on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in one province after US banana giant Chiquita Brands laid off about 5,000 workers following a strike that had ground its production to a halt. The declaration allows the government to speed past bureaucratic hurdles to address economic or social crises quickly. Chiquita, which employed more than 7,000 workers, laid off about 5,000 of them last week for what it called unjustified abandonment of work.
Photo: EPA-EFE
MALAYSIA
Minister steps down
Minister of Economic Affairs Rafizi Ramli yesterday said that he was resigning from his Cabinet post after losing his position as deputy president of the People’s Justice Party (PKR) to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s daughter in a party poll. “My defeat in the recent PKR party election means I no longer have the mandate from my party to translate the people’s agenda — championed by PKR — into government policy,” Ramli said in a statement.
THAILAND
Armies clash on border
The army and Cambodian soldiers yesterday briefly fired at each other in their disputed border area, the two sides said. The Cambodian soldiers entered a disputed area and its soldiers approached the area to negotiate, but due to misunderstanding, the Cambodian side opened fire and the army retaliated, it said. Cambodian Army spokesman Mao Phalla said the Cambodian troops were conducting a routine patrol along the border when the other side opened fire. The clash lasted about 10 minutes until local commanders spoke to each other and ordered a ceasefire. Both sides said they had no casualties or no immediate information on its casualties.
IRAN
Man executed for spying
Tehran has executed a man convicted of spying for Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, the judiciary said yesterday. “After identification, arrest and judicial proceedings against Pedram Madani, who was spying in favor of the Zionist regime, and following the complete process of criminal procedure and the final confirmation and upholding of the verdict by the Supreme Court, he was brought to justice and executed,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online reported. Madani was accused of transmitting classified information and holding meetings with Mossad officers abroad, including in Brussels, the report said.
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
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