MALAWI
VP’s plane likely ‘crashed’
An airplane carrying Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima might have crashed in dense forest, but it has not yet been found, the military said yesterday. Search-and-rescue operations had been hampered by foggy weather around the Chikangawa Forest, which was affecting visibility. Chilima, 51, was aboard a military aircraft with nine others that left Lilongwe, the capital, at 9:17am on Monday. The plane had been scheduled to land at Mzuzu airport at 10:02am, but was unable to land due to poor visibility and was ordered to return to the capital, President Lazarus Chakwera said in a televised address to the nation on Monday. Aviation authorities had failed to make contact with the plane since it went off the radar.
THAILAND
Rare elephant twins born
An elephant has delivered a rare set of twins in a dramatic birth that left a carer injured after he tried to rescue one of the newborns. The 36-year-old Asian elephant named Jamjuree gave birth to an 80kg male at the Ayutthaya Elephant Palace and Royal Kraal north of Bangkok on Friday night. However, when a second, 60kg female calf emerged 18 minutes later, the mother went into a frenzy and attacked her new arrival. “We heard somebody shout: ‘There is another baby being born,’” veterinarian Lardthongtare Meepan said. An elephant keeper, also known as a mahout, moved in to prevent the mother from attacking her newborn, and took a blow to his ankle in return. “The mother attacked the baby, because she had never had twins before — it’s very rare,” said Michelle Reedy, director of the Elephant Stay organization, which allows visiting tourists to ride, feed and bathe elephants at the Royal Kraal center. Jamjuree has now accepted her calves, who are so small that a special platform has been built to help them reach up to suckle.
THAILAND
Caged animals die in fire
Hundreds of caged animals died yesterday after a fire struck Chatuchak Weekend Market, one of the most famous markets in Bangkok. The fire was reported early in the morning and quickly swept across more than 100 shops in the market’s pet section, the Bangkok government said. Officials said it took them about an hour to bring the fire under control. There were no reports of human casualties, but local media reports said the fire killed several hundred animals, including puppies, fish, snakes, birds and rabbits, kept in cages and locked inside the shops. The cause of the fire is being investigated, said Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt, who visited the scene after the fire.
INDONESIA
Comedian gets 7 months
A court in the Muslim-majority nation has handed a comedian a seven-month prison sentence for blasphemy after he made a joke about the name Mohammed, a local legal official said yesterday. Aulia Rakhman, a comedian from Lampung Province on Sumatra Island, was found guilty of spreading hatred through stand-up jokes at an event in December, Lampung prosecutor’s office spokesperson Ricky Ramadhan said. He reportedly made a joke at a cafe in the provincial capital, Bandar Lampung, about how names like Mohammed — inspired by Islam’s founding prophet — had lost their positive connotations due to the sheer number of badly behaved Indonesians who share them. Aulia was found guilty last week, but the verdict only came to light yesterday. “The defendant admitted and regretted his actions, behaved politely at the trial, and the defendant has never been convicted,” Ramadhan said.
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
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
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
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
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