MALDIVES
Minister arrested for ‘magic’
Police have arrested a state environment minister, officers said yesterday, with media in the Indian Ocean nation reporting she was accused of performing “black magic” on the president. State Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Energy Fathimath Shamnaz Ali Saleem was arrested on Sunday along with two others in the capital, Male, police said. She has been remanded in custody for a week pending investigations, officers added, without giving details for her arrest. “There have been reports that Shamnaz was arrested for performing black magic on President Dr Mohamed Muizzu,” said the Sun, a local media outlet. Police would neither confirm nor deny the report. Sorcery is not a criminal offense under the penal code in the Muslim-majority Maldives, but it does carry a six-month jail sentence under Islamic law.
AUSTRALIA
‘Mushrooms’ recalled
Authorities have issued a recall alert for a brand of “mushroom” gummies, citing five hospitalizations and symptoms including “disturbing hallucinations.” Uncle Frog’s Mushroom Gummies were sold in two versions: Lion’s mane mushrooms claiming to help “memory and focus” or cordyceps fungus offering “energy and power.” The packets promise to “elevate your day,” but also say they have been “infused with Earth’s finest hemp.” At least five people have been hospitalized after eating the gummies in the eastern state of New South Wales, the state’s chief health officer said in a statement on Wednesday. Symptoms included “disturbing hallucinations,” “drowsiness or loss of consciousness,” and “seizure-like activity and involuntary movement such as arms/legs twitching, eye movement.”
KENYA
Tax proposal shelved
Police yesterday put up roadblocks as some protesters vowed to “occupy State House,” despite President William Ruto’s climbdown on proposed tax hikes that sparked a week of demonstrations. However, opinion was divided on the call to occupy the presidential residence, with some protest leaders supporting further demonstrations, but opposing calls to invade State House.
GREECE
Crew detained over fire
Two crew members of a superyacht were detained early yesterday over a forest fire on the island of Hydra believed to have been started by fireworks launched from their vessel. The two men, the skipper and the first mate, were placed under pre-trial detention after giving testimony, state news agency ANA said. Eleven other crew members were conditionally freed. Hydra’s firefighting team on Friday last week said the blaze was sparked “by fireworks launched from a boat” and ravaged the island’s sole pine forest.
CANADA
Cod moratorium ended
The Fisheries Department on Wednesday said that it had ended a Newfoundland and Labrador cod moratorium, which gutted the Atlantic coast province’s economy and transformed its small communities more than 30 years ago. “Ending the northern cod moratorium is a historic milestone for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians,” Minister of Fisheries Diane Lebouthillier said in a news release. “We will cautiously but optimistically build back this fishery with the prime beneficiaries being coastal and indigenous communities throughout Newfoundland and Labrador.”
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
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