FIJI
George Speight pardoned
Former coup leader George Speight was yesterday granted a presidential pardon and freed after spending 24 years in jail on treason charges. The Corrections Service said that the businessman-turned-putschist was formally granted a pardon along with six others. He was granted clemency on the recommendation of a Mercy Commission that was set up to deal with politically sensitive cases. Speight, a businessman, led a 2000 coup that held then-prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry and lawmakers hostage for 56 days.
NEW CALEDONIA
Two killed during raid
Two people were shot dead during a police operation overnight in the French territory, where unrest began in May between indigenous Kanaks and French loyalists, French media reported yesterday. That brought to 13 the number of people who have died since the start of the crisis that was sparked by a voting reform that was suspended in June.
PAKISTAN
Family forgives officer
The family of a blasphemy suspect killed in custody has forgiven the police officer accused of killing him, saying on Wednesday that they would not press charges “in the name of God.” Abdul Ali, 52, also known as Sakhi Lala, was allegedly shot dead last week in a police station in Quetta by police officer Saayd Mohammad Sarhadi, who had accessed the facility by pretending to be Ali’s relative, police said. “We will not fight the case,” Ali’s son Muhammad Usman told a news conference, sitting with another brother and elders from his tribal clan. “We have forgiven the police officer in the name of God.” One of the elders, Faizullah Noorzai, said that the tribe would disown Ali. “We and our families are the kind of people who would sacrifice their lives for the sake of the Prophet Mohammed and his respect.”
UNITED STATES
Train joyrider arrested
Police have arrested a teenage girl they say was one of two people who took an empty New York City subway train on a brief joyride before they crashed it and fled. They are looking for a male companion they believe was also pictured on the train. Surveillance photographs released by the New York Police Department on Tuesday showed one person dressed all in pink, including a pink shower cap, and another in a blue tank top. Police arrested the 17-year-old girl on Wednesday. They have charged her with criminal mischief and reckless endangerment. The pair boarded an unoccupied train parked at the Briarwood subway station in Queens just after midnight on Thursday last week and somehow got it running, police said in a news release. They crashed it into another parked train and ran, police said. No injuries were reported.
UNITED STATES
Wagon incident hurts 25
About 25 children and adults were injured on Wednesday when a wagon carrying them overturned at an apple orchard in Wisconsin. The children, parents and chaperones were on a field trip to the orchard in Lafayette when one of two wagons being pulled by a tractor turned sideways and rolled over, Chippewa County Sheriff Travis Hakes told reporters. Hakes said the tractor was traveling at a low speed when the wagon rolled over while going downhill. Three people sustained critical injuries, while injuries to five others were considered serious.
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