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.
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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