LIBYA
Qaddafi son captured
Muammar Qaddafi’s son and heir apparent Saif al-Islam has been detained in the southern desert, the interim justice minister said yesterday. He said Saif al-Islam and several bodyguards had been captured near the town of Obari by fighters based in the western mountain town of Zintan. “We have arrested Saif al-Islam Qaddafi in the Obari area,” Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagy said, adding that the 39-year-old, who is wanted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court at The Hague, was not injured. Another senior official in the executive of the National Transitional Council said that the interim government was still checking the details of what had happened. There was no word of the other official wanted by the court, former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi.
CHINA
Factory workers strike
More than 7,000 workers went on strike at a factory in the south of the country making New Balance, Adidas and Nike shoes, clashing with police in a protest over layoffs and wage cuts, a rights group said. Dozens of workers were injured on Thursday as police tried to break the strikers’ blockade of the main road in the factory town near Dongguan in Guangdong Province, China Labor Watch said in a statement on Friday. The strike at the Yucheng factory in Huangjiang Township took place in the wake of the layoff last month of 18 managers, a move seen by workers as a preparation for the factory’s relocation, the New York-based group said.
CHINA
Crashed plane identified
A plane that crashed and exploded in the east of the country on Nov. 7 has been identified as a navy aircraft in a local television broadcast of a memorial for the pilot, a rights group said yesterday. The identification confirms that this was the second crash of a military aircraft in just under a month, after a fighter jet plunged to the ground and exploded at an air show last month, killing one of the pilots. The memorial for the pilot who died in this month’s crash in Zhejiang Province was broadcast on Wednesday by the local television station in his birthplace, Zouping City, Shandong Province, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
HONG KONG
Women face murder charge
Police charged two foreign women, believed to be Indonesians, with murder yesterday after they allegedly dumped a newborn baby girl in a garbage bin and left her to die. Police identified the women only as expatriates aged 26 and 32. Reports in the local media earlier in the week quoted police as saying they were Indonesian domestic helpers. “The 26-year-old woman, who gave birth to a baby on Nov. 16, dumped the baby at a refuse collection point at Ying Lung Wai with the help of her 32-year-old female friend,” police said in a statement. It said a search was still under way at an landfill in the West New Territories, but there appeared to be no hope the baby would be found alive. The woman delivered the girl at a house and stuffed her into a plastic bag before throwing her in a trash bin, the South China Morning Post reported earlier, quoting police. It said the friend told a third person, who alerted the mother’s employer, who in turn called the police. The employer reportedly told police he was not aware the woman was pregnant.
BRAZIL
Gunmen kill Indian chief
Gunmen executed a chief of the Kaiowa-Guarani Indian tribe and disappeared with his body on Friday, according to Funai, the country’s federal indigenous affairs agency. Funai spokesman Bruno Perez said in an e-mailed statement that more than 40 “hooded and heavily armed” gunmen raided the Tekoha Guaiviry village in Mato Grosso do Sul State and fatally shot chief Nisio Gomes. He said the gunmen fled into the surrounding jungle in two pickup trucks with Gomes’ body. Funai spokeswoman Simone Fernandes said it appeared the gunmen were hired by local ranchers seeking to intimidate and expel the tribe from land that both sides claim as their own. The Roman Catholic Church-backed Indian Missionary Council said Gomes was shot several times in the head, chest, legs and arms. The council said witnesses reported that the gunmen also kidnapped two youths and one child.
LEBANON
Qaddafi verdict delayed
A court on Friday delayed its verdict in a case alleging late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s involvement in the 1978 disappearance of a Shiite cleric, pending confirmation of Qaddafi’s death. In 2008, Lebanon issued an arrest warrant for Qaddafi and six others over the disappearance of Musa Sadr, a spiritual guide of Lebanon’s Shiite community. Two influential figures from Qaddafi’s entourage, Ahmed Ramadan and Abdel Moneim al-Honi, have confirmed the Libyan leader had ordered Sadr killed.
GAZA STRIP
Hamas orders bank payouts
Hamas has ordered two banks to pay out more than US$100 million following a lower court ruling, bank bosses said on Friday. A board member from the Islamic Bank of Palestine said that following the decision, US$6 million of his bank’s assets had been preventively frozen and US$100 million from the Bank of Palestine. The court decision also barred board members from either bank from leaving the territory, the source said asking not to be named. The banker denounced the decision, saying: “All banks in Gaza pay no taxes in accordance with an exemption extended in 2007 by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.” An official from the Bank of Palestine said his bank had been ordered to pay US$99.7 million and 50 million shekels (US$14 million) in unpaid taxes and late penalties. In March, most banks closed in protest after funds were seized with the approval of Hamas, which has controlled the territory since chasing out security forces loyal to Abbas. Monetary authorities under the control of Abbas’ West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, block any bank from dealing with Hamas.
UNITED STATES
Focus on economy: poll
Nearly nine out of 10 Americans say their government should focus more on domestic economic woes than on its global engagement, a survey released on Friday showed. The Ipsos survey of 18,682 adults in 24 countries found the same was true in other countries, but to a slightly lesser extent, with only eight in 10 focused primarily on jobs and their pocketbooks. “Most people want their nations to be engaged citizens of the world, but economic pressures prompt people to look inward,” said Peter Van Praagh, head of the Halifax International Security Forum, which commissioned the poll. Economics aside, about 80 percent of respondents support their governments in their efforts to help countries struck by natural disasters, nurture democracy or punish countries behaving badly by levying sanctions.
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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