AUSTRALIA
Lawmaker dangles salmon
A lawmaker yesterday dangled a floppy dead salmon in the Senate, accusing the government of falling hook, line and sinker for polluting industrial fish farms. Environmental advocates have questioned the practices of intensive salmon farms in Tasmania, accusing them of choking waterways with waste and fish feces. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said she was fed up with a government that refused to enforce more stringent environmental standards. “On the eve of an election, have you sold out your environmental credentials for a rotten, stinking extinction salmon,” she said on a live feed of the proceedings, briefly pausing to heft the fish on to her desk. A fellow Greens senator sitting behind her cried out: “It stinks.” Hanson-Young was ordered to remove the fish — sheathed in a plastic bag.
Photo: Reuters
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Police unblock Facebook
Police yesterday said that they had unblocked Facebook after cutting off access in the nation because of a “counterterrorism” operation. Meta’s Facebook and Messenger platforms had been inaccessible since going offline on Monday. The police minister initially issued a statement praising a successful test of “innovative technology” to control misuse of Facebook content. Yesterday, the chief of police said that Facebook had been taken down as the force grappled with criminals abusing the social network. “A counterterrorism operation is under way to apprehend two men connected to attempts to incite an act of terrorism,” Police Commissioner David Manning said in a statement.
THAILAND
No-confidence vote fails
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra yesterday easily survived a no-confidence vote in parliament following a two-day debate in which rivals charged that she has mismanaged the country and let her father, a former prime minister, control her administration. Opposition lawmakers argued that she has been unduly influenced by her father, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Paetongtarn’s opponents said her administration has improperly favored the personal and financial interests of her family and her father. Paetongtarn received 319 votes, with 161 voting against her and seven abstaining.
PERU
President announces vote
President Dina Boluarte on Tuesday said that the country would hold general elections one year from now in an effort to end years of instability. The polls would elect a new president, 130 deputies and 60 senators, Boluarte said. The bicameral election system has not been used since the early 1990s. In a brief nationwide television address, Boularte did not say if she would be a candidate.
UNITED STATES
Voter ID ordered
President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered tighter controls on federal elections, including requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote. “Perhaps some people think I shouldn’t be complaining, because we won in a landslide [in November last year], but we’ve got to straighten out our election,” Trump said as he signed the executive order in the White House. “This country is so sick because of the election, the fake elections, and we’re going to straighten it out, one way or the other.”
A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her. Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected. On May 4, 2021, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. A neighbor hearing
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
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