AUSTRALIA
Landmark treaty signed
Canberra and Funafuti are pressing ahead with a landmark treaty offering the Pacific Island’s citizens a climate refuge, quieting speculation about the fate of the pact. The 11-page treaty was presented to the Australian Parliament late on Tuesday — offering Tuvalu residents the right to live in Australia if their homeland is lost to rising sea levels. The pact also commits Australia to defending Tuvalu in the face of natural disasters, health pandemics and “military aggression,” but only upon their request for aid.
TUNISIA
Four sentenced to death
Four people were condemned to death and two sentenced to life in prison yesterday after a decade-long investigation into the 2013 killing of secular opposition leader Chokri Belaid. Belaid’s assassination, which was claimed by militants loyal to the Islamic State group, dealt a heavy blow to the fledgling democracy established after the overthrow Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in the first of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011. The judgement was announced on national television early yesterday after 15 hours of deliberation. Twenty-three people received sentences ranging from two to 120 years, while five defendants were acquitted.
UKRAINE
Russian fleet devastated
The military has sunk or disabled one-third of all Russian warships in the Black Sea in just more than two years of war, a navy spokesman said on Tuesday, a heavy blow to Moscow’s military capability. Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk said that the latest strike on Saturday night hit the Russian amphibious landing ship Kostiantyn Olshansky that was resting in dock in Sevastopol in Russia-occupied Crimea, along with two other landing ships and an intelligence ship. With the latest attack, one-third of all warships that Russian had in the Black Sea before the war have been destroyed or disabled, Pletenchuk said.
UNITED STATES
Man dies in subway attack
A man died after being pushed onto subway tracks in New York in an unprovoked attack, authorities reported less than a month after troops were deployed to reduce surging violence in the city’s transportation system. The victim, who has not been identified, was shoved in front of an oncoming No. 4 train on Monday evening in East Harlem, police said. Officers arrested and charged the alleged assailant, a 24-year-old man named Carlton McPherson, who local media reported has a long history of mental illness. In the past few months there have been a number of deadly shootings, as well as incidents involving knives and passengers being pushed onto the tracks.
AUSTRALIA
Man in drain hiding: police
Police yesterday said that a man who spent more than 30 hours stuck in a Brisbane drain was hiding from them, not trying to retrieve a lost mobile phone as he initially claimed. The man’s underground escapades are believed to have begun when he was allegedly involved in a crash with a police vehicle in the early hours of Sunday. After hitting the police vehicle, the man fled before being involved in another crash, at which point he fled on foot, police said. It was then that the 38-year-old man is alleged to have entered the drain looking for a place to hide. The trapped man was initially spotted by a passerby on Sunday and refused an offer of help, saying: “No bro, I’m all good,” adding he was looking for a lost phone.
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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