MALAYSIA
Hundreds arrested in probe
Police on Saturday said they have arrested hundreds of suspects as part of an investigation into child abuse at care homes run by an Islamic conglomerate. In what is believed to be the worst such case to hit the country in decades, police said they had arrested 355 people, including religious studies teachers and caregivers, and rescued more than 400 children. At the heart of the investigation is the Global Ikhwan Service and Business (GISB) group, which has long been controversial for its links to the banned al-Arqam sect. Police said they had arrested GISB leader Nasiruddin Ali along with 30 other members of the group after carrying out raids on scores of premises, including charity homes, businesses and religious schools. Medical screenings show that at least 13 children suffered sexual abuse, Police Inspector-General Razarudin Husain has said.
UNITED STATES
Four killed in shooting
Four people have died and more than 20 were wounded in a shooting in a nightlife area in Birmingham, Alabama, police and news reports said on Saturday. “We believe that multiple shooters fired multiple shots on a group of people” in the Five Points South neighborhood just after 11pm, Birmingham Police officer Truman Fitzgerald told local media. There were “dozens of gunshot victims” and at least four had “life-threatening” injuries, AL.com reported, quoting Fitzgerald. Two men and a woman were pronounced dead at the scene, while a fourth victim died at a local hospital, he said. There were no immediate arrests, police said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Gray seal turns 50
A gray seal named Sheba, the grand dame of the Cornish Seal Sanctuary, was on Saturday celebrated for her 50th birthday, far surpassing the lifespan of a seal in the wild and possibly being the oldest in captivity. “Reaching 50 is a huge milestone, not just for Sheba, but for everyone here who has been part of her journey,” said Tamara Cooper, curator at the facility in southwest England. In September 1974, Ken Jones found Sheba on a Cornwall beach with a head injury and nasty eye infection and took her home where he and his wife rehabilitated seals in a pool. As Sheba grew, so did the rescue operation, moving from Jones’ backyard to the Helford River in Gweek and expanding to rehabilitate more than 70 seal pups a year. Sheba’s condition, including loss of vision, prevented her return to the sea. Seals typically survive 25 to 30 years in the wild, while females in captivity can live to 40 and males to about 30, Cooper said.
GUINEA
Research center ransacked
People living near a chimpanzee research center on Friday attacked the facility after a woman said one of the animals had killed her infant, the center’s managers said. An angry crowd ransacked the building, destroying and setting fire to equipment including drones, computers and more than 200 documents, the managers said. Eyewitnesses said the crowd was reacting to the news that the mutilated body of an infant had been found 3km from the Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve. The child’s mother, Seny Zogba, told Reuters she was working in a cassava field when a chimpanzee came up from behind, bit her and pulled her baby into the forest. Local ecologist Alidjiou Sylla said the dwindling supply of food in the reserve was pushing the animals to leave the protected area more frequently, increasingly the likelihood of attacks.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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