■SERBIA
Albanians protest arrests
Thousands of Albanians protested on Monday asking for an immediate release of a group of Albanians arrested last month over crimes against Serbs, media reported. Around 3,000 Albanians gathered in Presevo town in the south, near a border with Kosovo, demanding the release of members of the so-called Gnjilanska group suspected of murdering, torturing and raping Kosovo Serbs from 1999 to 2001. “We demand that all members of Gnjilanska group be released because we believe they haven’t committed the crimes they are accused of. If they did, they wouldn’t be living in Presevo with Serb police,” said Nader Sadiku, head of Presevo municipality. Protesters carried banners with signs “Presevo valley is Kosovo” and “Freedom fighters don’t belong in jail.” The protest ended with no incidents.
■SOMALIA
Hardliners seize Baidoa
Hardline Islamists on Monday said they had taken control of Baidoa, the seat of the country’s parliament, after Ethiopian troops pulled out at the weekend. Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, the spokesman of the Shebab, a military youth wing of an Islamist movement ousted by Ethiopian forces forces in early 2007, said the south-central town was now under their control. “The town is completely in our hands. We have taken control of Baidoa today,” Robow told reporters. “There are a few militia who are firing at us in the town, but we are going to crack down on them.”
■JAPAN
Baby bodies found in bags
The decomposed bodies of four infants were found in plastic bags in a Tokyo apartment where an unemployed woman recently killed herself, news reports said on Monday. The 51-year-old woman lived alone, and her sister and brother-in-law found the bodies stuffed in the closet when they visited on Sunday to collect her belongings, television reports said. Police confirmed that the couple found four bags and saw a body inside at least one of them. “As for the content of the other bags, it is under investigation,” a police spokesman said. News reports said the bodies were little more than skeletons and that police were studying DNA samples to see if the children belonged to the deceased woman. She was found hanged on Friday in a park near the apartment, and reportedly left a suicide note saying, “I have suffered from money issues. I can’t pay the rent any more.”
■AUSTRALIA
Serial killer severs finger
Serial backpacker murderer Ivan Milat was rushed to hospital on Monday after severing a finger and giving it to a guard in an envelope addressed to the High Court, officials said. Milat, 64, is serving consecutive life sentences in solitary confinement for the murder of seven backpackers — five of whom were international travelers — in the 1990s. He was taken under high-security escort to hospital on Monday after severing a finger while in his cell, prison officials said. The finger was placed on ice and he was handcuffed, shackled and attached to a monitoring device to be taken for emergency reattachment surgery, a spokeswoman said. Milat seemed calm and did not show any signs of shock, she said. It was unclear whether the digit could be saved. Milat, one of the country’s worst serial killers, was convicted in 1996 of murdering two British backpackers, three Germans and two Australians. The remains of all seven, murdered between 1989 and 1994, were found in the Belanglo State Forest.
■LIBERIA
Anti-caterpillar plea made
The government has set up a command post and called on international experts to help fight an invasion by millions of crop-devouring caterpillars that are eating their way across the country. The tiny caterpillars are clogging wells and waterways with excrement and devouring vital crops including banana, plantain, coffee and cocoa. They swarmed around a clinic in one town, preventing people from accessing it, the Ministry of Agriculture said. “The pests were found to attack practically all crops of economic value. Their droppings pollute the waters, rendering them unwholesome for human use,” the ministry said. The plague has now affected 65 towns.
■UNITED STATES
London couple go on display
Londoners Duncan Malcolm and Katherine Lewis have settled into their Big Apple hotel room — under the eyes of thousands of pedestrians and motorists. The couple are receiving a complimentary five-day stay at Manhattan’s Roger Smith Hotel in exchange for staying in a replica of one of the hotel’s rooms on the ground floor of a nearby building. They must keep the curtains on the room’s large glass windows open between 4:30pm and 7:30pm until Friday, allowing passers-by to watch them.
■GERMANY
Berlin backs sea trial
The government dropped its opposition on Monday to a controversial experiment to dump iron sulphate in the South Atlantic to see if it can absorb greenhouse gases and possibly help to halt global warming. “After a study of expert reports, I am convinced there are no scientific or legal objections against the ... ocean research experiment LOHAFEX,” Research Minister Annette Schavan said in a statement. Scientists aboard the Polarstern will drop 6 tonnes of the dissolved iron over 300km² of ocean. They hope the release of iron will cause an exponential growth in phytoplankton, which will then absorb more carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. But opponents of the plan fear the experiment could cause the sea to become more acidic or trigger algal blooms that would strip swathes of the ocean of oxygen.
■ARGENTINA
Farm emergency declared
President Cristina Fernandez declared an agricultural emergency on Monday in the nation’s breadbasket provinces, responding to a key demand by powerful farm organizations amid the worst drought in decades. She told political and business leaders in a televised press conference that the decree will exempt thousands of farmers from paying various taxes for one year to help them confront what analysts estimate will be US$5 billion in losses this year. In some areas, officials say it is the worst drought since the 1930s. To qualify for the tax exemption, producers must have lost at least 50 percent of their harvest or herd.
■UNITED STATES
Rodenberrys space-bound
The creator of Star Trek and his wife will spend eternity together in space. Celestis, a company that specializes in “memorial spaceflights,” said on Monday that it will ship the remains of Gene Roddenberry and Majel Barrett Roddenberry into space next year. A rocket-launched spacecraft will carry the capsules, along with digitized tributes from fans. The Roddenberrys’ remains will travel ever deeper into space and will not return to Earth, the company said. After Gene Roddenberry died in 1991, his wife had Celestis launch a part of his remains into space in 1997. She died on Dec. 18 last year.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
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