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.
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