■DENMARK
Arms merchant arrested
A man who has admitted parachuting arms into the Indian state of West Bengal in 1995 was arrested on Friday after officials in agreed to back his extradition, authorities said. A prosecutor said police had long known that Niels Holcks, 47, was in Denmark, but negotiations over his possible extradition had dragged on for years. “It is correct that we have had knowledge of Niels Holcks’ whereabouts in Denmark since 2001,” Birgitte Bundsgaard said. “The reason why the ministry of justice decided to arrest him today is partly that it has taken several years to negotiate the terms for a potential extradition with Indian authorities.”
■AFGHANISTAN
Bullet removed from head
A US military doctor removed a live round of ammunition from the head of an Afghan soldier in an unusual and harrowing surgery. Doctors say a 14.5mm unexploded round — more than 5cm long — was removed from the scalp of an Afghan National Army soldier at the Bagram Air Field hospital last month. When the Afghan soldier, in his 20s, arrived at the base, doctors thought it was shrapnel or the spent end of some sort of round, said Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Terreri, a radiologist deployed from Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. But as he reviewed a CAT scan of the soldier, he realized it was a much bigger problem, an Air Force news release said last week.
■CHINA
Mine death toll mounts
Rescuers recovered yet another body at a coal mine in the north, bringing the death toll from a massive flood to 26, state media reported yesterday. Twelve people still remained unaccounted for at the huge, unfinished Wangjialing mine in Shanxi Province, 13 days after it was flooded in the latest high-profile incident to hit the country’s notoriously dangerous mining sector. The flood left 153 workers trapped underground, but 115 were rescued alive on Monday in what officials called a “miracle.”
■AUSTRALIA
Asylum block questioned
A decision to temporarily block asylum-seekers from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka could face a legal challenge, lawyers said yesterday. On Friday, Canberra announced it would immediately stop taking fresh applications from asylum-seekers from those two countries, as it attempts to thwart people smuggling operations. But the Australian Lawyers Alliance said the policy, which means new arrivals from those countries cannot apply for asylum for between three and six months, could breach the law by discriminating against Afghans and Sri Lankans. “The law in Australia and the rule of law is such that laws have to be applied equally, irrespective of where a person comes from or their race,” the alliance’s Greg Barns told ABC Radio.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Cat terrifies postal service
Britain’s postal service says it has suspended deliveries to a woman following repeated attacks by her 19-year-old cat. Royal Mail said on Friday that it had halted deliveries because postal workers had already sustained “nasty injuries” at the address in the town of Farsley, near Leeds in northern Britain. The woman was identified as a 43-year-old pharmacy worker. Media reports say she found it hard to believe that her cat, named “Tiger,” could be behind the attacks. She told two newspapers the animal spent most of its day sleeping and didn’t have the energy to chase postal workers.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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