FIJI
Bainimarama found guilty
Former prime minister Frank Bainimarama was yesterday found guilty of illegally shutting down a sensitive police investigation, local media and a court official said. The charges related to a police investigation into staff at the University of the South Pacific in July 2020, when Bainimarama was prime minister. He had been found not guilty by a magistrate’s court in October last year, but the case was returned to Suva’s High Court following an appeal by the prosecution. Acting Chief Justice Salesi Temo found Bainimarama guilty of one count of perverting the court of justice, an official in the court’s registrar office said. Suspended police commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho was convicted of one count of abuse of office, the official said. Following the guilty verdicts, the high court sent both men back to the magistrates court for sentencing on March 28, local media said.
NORTH KOREA
Kim drives new tank
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un joined his troops in training to operate newly developed battle tanks as he called for bigger efforts to prepare for war, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported yesterday. The North’s tank training was seen as a response to the annual 11-day South Korean-US military drills that were to end later yesterday. The North views its rivals’ exercises a rehearsal for invasion. The North’s training on Wednesday was designed to inspect combat capabilities and involved the new-type main battle tank that Kim called “the world’s most powerful,” KCNA said. Kim mounted one of the new-type tanks and drove it himself, “adding to the high militant spirit of the tankmen of our army,” KCNA said.
UNITED STATES
Man in iron lung dies
A Texas man who spent most of his 78 years using an iron lung chamber and built a large following on social media, recounting his life from contracting polio in the 1940s to earning a law degree, has died. Paul Alexander died on Monday at a Dallas hospital, longtime friend Daniel Spinks said. Alexander had recently been hospitalized after being diagnosed with COVID-19, Spinks said, adding that he did not know the cause of death. Alexander was six when he began using an iron lung, a cylinder that encased his body as the air pressure in the chamber forced air into and out of his lungs. In recent years he had millions of views on his TikTok account called “Conversations With Paul.” Alexander told the Dallas Morning News in 2018 that he was powered by faith, and that what drove his motivation to succeed was his late parents, who he called “magical” and “extraordinary souls.”
NIGERIA
Gunmen want US$620,000
Gunmen who kidnapped 286 students and staff from a school in the northern town of Kuriga last week have demanded 1 billion naira (US$622,132) for their release, a spokesman for the families of the hostages and a local councilor said. The schoolchildren, some older students and members of the school staff were abducted on March 7 in the first mass kidnapping in the country since 2021. Jubril Aminu, a community leader who acts as a spokesman for the families of the hostages, said he had received a call on his phone from the kidnappers on Tuesday. “They gave an ultimatum to pay the ransom within 20 days, effective from the date of the kidnap. They said they will kill all the students and the staff if the ransom demand is not met,” he said. Idris Ibrahim, an elected official from the Kuriga Ward municipal council, said that security forces were taking “adequate measures” to secure the release of the students.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home