■AFGHANISTAN
Troops kill 23 rebels
Afghan soldiers backed by troops from the NATO-led international force stormed a militant stronghold in the southern province of Uruzgan on Tuesday, killing 23 insurgents, army General Sher Mohammad Zazai said yesterday. The dead in the attack included a local Taliban commander, Zazai said. “We had an operation in Chinarto area last night during which we located a Taliban hideout. We killed 23 enemy fighters,” Zazai said. He said that fighter jets from the NATO force took part in the battle in Chinarto, which is close to the provincial capital of Tirin Kot.
■PHILIPPINES
Storm leaves five dead
At least five people have been killed and seven are missing as Tropical Storm Nangka sweeps over the central Philippines, officials said yesterday. Packing winds of up to 83kph — with gusts of up to 102kph — the storm brought floods, landslides and power cuts across small islands in the center of the archipelago. Four fishermen drowned off Alabat island southeast of Manila late on Tuesday as they tried to steer their boat to shelter from the approaching cyclone, said Perez municipal police chief Inspector Susan Planas. Eleven other crew members were rescued but one of them was injured, she said in a telephone interview. One fisherman drowned off the island of Cebu and six others were missing off Cebu and Samar islands. A child was also missing in a flooded section of Romblon island, the civil defense office said.
■BANGLADESH
Soap opera to help farmers
The creators of a new TV soap opera said yesterday they hoped it would teach farmers in one of the world’s poorest nations new tricks to boost their income. The Dhaka branch of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has produced the eight-episode drama, which will air weekly until August on a private satellite channel. “It aims to help farmers to learn about new technology and to improve their incomes,” said Zainul Abedin, of IRRI Bangladesh. “It shows how small scale changes can help.” Aside from new technology, the episodes touch on food security and how to share ideas with other farmers. Abedin said farmers could text in questions after each show and issues raised may be used in future episodes.
■INDONESIA
Bali wary of Aussies
The government expressed concern yesterday that Australian tourists could bring swine flu to the resort island of Bali, after it confirmed its first two cases of the virus. Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said she was “very worried” that Australians who flock to Bali’s famous surf beaches would spread the virus in a country that had so far avoided the worst of the pandemic. “Honestly I’m very worried about people who come from Australia,” she told reporters at a press conference held to announce the first two confirmed cases in Indonesia, including a British woman who lived in Australia.
■INDONESIA
Rare elephants killed
At least 15 endangered Sumatran elephants have been shot or poisoned to death with cyanide-laced fruit this year, marking a sharp rise in the rate of killing from last year, a government conservationist said yesterday. The giant mammals were mostly killed by poachers for their ivory, said Tony Suhartono, director of biodiversity conservation at the forest ministry. The number killed in the past six months is equal to the total for the whole of last year, he said.
■BULGARIA
Ceku detention requested
Prosecutors requested a three-day detention for former Kosovo prime minister Agim Ceku, arrested on a Serbian Interpol warrant, the interior ministry in Sofia confirmed yesterday. Ceku was arrested on Tuesday on the Bulgarian border. It was Ceku’s third arrest on a warrant from Serbia, which sentenced him in absentia to 20 years in prison for war crimes during the conflict in Kosovo a decade ago. Ceku, 59, was the commander of the Kosovo Albanian insurgent army which fought Serbia until NATO became involved in 1999, eventually ousting Belgrade’s security forces.
■SYRIA
US to return ambassador
The US is to return an ambassador to Syria after an absence of more than four years, the Washington Post reported yesterday, citing a senior administration official. The report said that US President Barack Obama had decided on the move as it seeks to increase its influence in the region and rehabilitate its relations with the Islamic world and the Arab Middle East. Former president George W. Bush withdrew the US ambassador to Syria in February 2005 after the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, in which Syrian intelligence officials are suspected of involvement. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has long rejected that assertion.
■SAUDIA ARABIA
California dog far from home
A “sweetheart” of a dog now in a California shelter may be really, really far from home. His microchip says the knee-high, light tan Saluki came from Saudi Arabia. The neutered male dog brought to a Carlsbad animal shelter last week has an implanted microchip that was sold to the US Military Training Mission, headquartered in Riyadh, said Lieutenant Dan DeSousa of San Diego County’s Animal Services Department. The dog was found on June 15 near Escondido, about 50km north of San Diego. DeSousa said he believes someone in the military owns the dog and likely brought him from overseas.
■JORDAN
Mosque tour ‘provocative’
The Jordanian government on Tuesday condemned as “provocative” a tour of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque earlier in the day by Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch and a number of soldiers. Minister of State for Information Affairs and Communication Nabil Sharif urged an immediate cessation of such moves, which he said endangered the chances of peace. “This is an unacceptable provocation that hurts sentiments of millions of Arabs and Muslims, and a flagrant encroachment on the sanctity of one of Islam’s most sacred places,” he said. “The Jordanian government has been following up with extreme concern this dangerous development and expresses its deep disappointment and categorical rejection of this unjustifiable step by the Israeli official.”
■ISRAEL
Shackling is ‘torture’: group
Security forces’ shackling of Palestinian prisoners is frequently cruel and humiliating and in a number of instances constitutes “torture,” a rights group said yesterday. The army and the internal security forces “shackle detainees in painful and humiliating manners that, in a number of instances, rise to the level of torture,” the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel said. The group published its findings in a report based on 547 cases of arrests and dozens of interrogations conducted over the past year. It added that the victims were mostly Palestinians detained for “security” reasons.
■UNITED STATES
She-mummy was a man
A scan performed at a suburban New York City hospital shows an ancient Egyptian mummy thought for centuries to be a woman is a man. A Manhasset hospital examined four mummies from the Brooklyn Museum on Tuesday. A CAT scan revealed a mummy named Lady Hor was male. Researchers conducted the scans with the hopes of gaining further knowledge about ancient funeral practices and the mummies’ identities and causes of death. North Shore University Hospital spokeswoman Michelle Pinto said the testing enables radiologists to learn about the skeletal systems of the mummies in extraordinary detail without having to do invasive or damaging procedures.
■UNITED STATES
Snake in broccoli unsolved
The case of the severed snake head in a dish of broccoli at an upstate New York restaurant may go unsolved. A diner said he found the snake head on May 3 while eating at a TGI Friday’s in Clifton Park, north of Albany. Laboratory tests showed the head hadn’t been cooked, indicating it was added to the broccoli at the restaurant. The Carrollton, Texas-based company asked New York State Police to investigate. State police say they can’t determine how the snake wound up in the dish and that the investigation has been closed. The statute of limitations is five years.
■UNITED STATES
Obama can’t quit smoking
President Barack Obama may have just made life more difficult for cigarette makers, but he is not above sneaking a smoke every now and again. Obama, who has publicly struggled to quit smoking, said he still hasn’t completely kicked the habit even after signing a law this week that will likely set tough new rules for the tobacco industry. “As a former smoker I constantly struggle with it. Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No,” Obama said at a news conference. “I don’t do it in front of my kids, I don’t do it in front of my family. I would say that I am 95 percent cured, but there are times where I mess up,” he said.
■UNITED STATES
Ed McMahon dies at 86
Ed McMahon, a fixture on US late-night TV for 30 years as the full-throated announcer and sidekick for Johnny Carson on NBC’s The Tonight Show, died on Tuesday at 86 after battling a series of illnesses in recent months. The veteran TV personality best known for his nightly introduction of Carson in a deep, booming voice with the drawn-out line, “Heeeeeeeeere’s Johnny!” died at a Los Angeles hospital and was immediately hailed by friends and former colleagues as an icon of US popular culture. McMahon had been battling pneumonia, among many other illnesses.
■NICARAGUA
Jail inmate murders wife
A prisoner serving a 10-year sentence for drug trafficking allegedly murdered his wife in a fit of jealousy while they were alone in a room reserved for conjugal visits at the prison, media reported on Tuesday. Prison guards found the 19-year-old woman dead after her husband, Freddy Zacarias, 32, left the room without her. A medical examiner, Maria Gonzalez, determined that the victim was smothered to death with a pillow. Identified only as Andrea, the reports said the woman visited her husband at the prison every week from the city of Juigalpa, 139km east of Managua.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
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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