Lyons, France / Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Dubai police have added 16 more international arrest warrants to the 11 already issued, linked to the 20 January death of Hamas military leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh. Interpol has added the new warrants to its existing Red Notices for the case. Interpol, based in Lyons, insists on the likely use of identity theft by the murderers. “Since Intepol has reason to believe that the suspects linked to this murder have stolen the identities of real people, the Red Notices specify that the names used were aliases used to commit murder,” its web site notes. “Interpol has officially made public the photos and the names fraudulently used on the passports in order to limit the ability of accused murderers from traveling freely using the same false passports.”
The international criminal police organization says it contacted the Geneva-based World Economic Forum in January to alert it to the increased risk of terrorists traveling on documents using stolen identities, which makes it easier for them to avoid detection.
Calf taking his first steps at Taronga Zoo, Sydney, Australia (photo: Bobby-Jo Vial)
Australia is having a good day: first the news about police killing Dalmatin, the mastermind behind the Bali bombings which killed 100 Australians, and now the cheering news about a little elephant calf at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, born shortly after 03:00 Wednesday 10 March. The calf was declared dead in his mother’s womb three days earlier, but surprised everyone when he was born alive, and first signs are encouraging: with help from the intensive care staff at the zoo he has taken his first steps within just hours of his birth, attempted to suckle his mother, Porntip, and touched the trunks of the other elephants at the zoo, writes the Sydney Morning Herald.
”Advice from world elephant reproduction expert, Dr Thomas Hildebrandt of the Berlin Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Health is that such an outcome after a protracted labour has never been seen before,” according to the zoo’s pages on the new calf. ” He said the birth will completely re-write the elephant birth text books.” The zoo now believes the calf was in a coma during his mother’s lengthy labour, which explains why they were unable to pick up his vital signs.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono confirmed Wednesday 10 March that Dulmatin, long sought as one of the main suspected planners behind a 2002 Bali bombing, died in a raid on militants Tuesday. The Bali blasts killed 202 people, about half of them Australian. The raid was one of a series in Aceh province, which have netted several arrests.
Links to other sites: The Age, Australia, BBC, Sydney Morning Herald
The number of suspects in the murder of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in December has now grown to 26, say Dubai police, with Australian passports reportedly used. Australia called in the Israeli ambassador and issued a sharp warning that it will not tolerate any government condoning or being behind the theft of its citizens’ passports, with suspicion growing that Israel was behind the murder. Australia has reportedly warned Israel in the past not to use Australian passports for its espionage activities. The Israeli government has said there is no proof that Mossad, its secret service, is involved. Some of the Australians identified, who are living in Israel, were shocked to learn of what appears to be several cases of identity theft.
A 60-year-old Australian woman, Paddy Trumbull, who was snorkeling next to her boat near Whitsunday Islands, Queensland, managed to fight off a 1.5 metre shark by repeatedly punching it. She lost 40 percent of her blood in the process and she suffered deep bite wounds, according to ABC Radio in Australia, but the shark didn’t dent her sense of humour and she says she’s just glad to be alive. She’s expected to stay in the hospital until the end of the week, but will need at least more surgeries.
Newlands, Capetown, South Africa (GenevaLunch) - The English bowlers made a dramatic start to the second day of the third Test against South Africa when the last four South African wickets fell in16 balls. Graham Onions took the most important wicket when he dismissed Jacques Kallis for 108 with his first ball. James Anderson took the next three to end with five for 63. South Africa ended on 291.
The South African bowlers quickly struck back, dismissing Andrew Strauss, Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen in the opening session.
Pakistan ended the second day of the Melbourne Test well on top. After dismissing Australia for 127 they ended on 331 for nine.
Links to other sites: Yahoo cricket, BBC, Times
(Video) Ben Southall, the Briton who beat out 34,000 other applicants for what Australia’s Queensland Tourism described as the “best job in the world”, is ending the six-month stint with a nasty jellyfish sting. Southall is not complaining, though, since the sting could well have been deadly: two tourists died from them in 2002. He’s now stepping off the island for a bit to promote Queensland around the world.
Links to other sites: Ben Southall’s blog and Twitter page, Best Job in the World
Video, ABC TV in Australia
Durban, South Africa (GenevaLunch) - The England captain showed a previously unseen side to his game when he scored 50 runs in only 49 balls in reply to South Africa’s score of 343 all out in the second test at Durban. The home team made that many largely thanks to the late assault on Graeme Swann’s bowling by Dale Steyn. England ended the second day on 103 for one.
The main interest of the day was focused on the system of referring umpiring decisions to television replay: this led to Mark Boucher being given out lbw to Swann after the umpire’s “not out” was reversed.
An iceberg the size of Manhattan Island in New York is drifting towards Australia, say scientists. Given the warmer waters near Australia, it is not expected to arrive in its current shape, but rather to break up into a small flotilla of smaller icebergs. The event is uncommon but not extremely rare: a large block of ice drifted towards New Zealand in November. And a group of icebergs that drifted near the coast of New Zealand three years ago prompted a short boom in tourism.
Twickenham, London, England (GenevaLunch) - England played better than in recent matches, holding the All Blacks to 6-6 at half time but could not match the New Zealanders in the second half and lost 6-19. At least the England women beat the New Zealand Ferns.
Scotland pulled off a surprise 9-8 victory over Australia where their heart was just enough to hold out against the technically better Wallabies. It was their first win against the Aussies for 27 years. Wales beat Argentina 33-16 with two tries by Shane Williams.
Links to other sites: The Guardian, The Times
First reports are optimistic for two conjoined girls who were separated by a medical team in Melbourne, Australia during 27 hours of surgery. Krishna and Trishna, orphans from Bangladesh who were joined at the head, are doing well, although lead doctor Leo Donnan says they have a long road ahead of them, with risks related to recovering from the surgery but also a 50 percent chance of brain damage and 25 percent chance one of them will die. The girls are 2 years 11 months old. They were living at an orphanage in Bangladesh, where the risk of surgery was considered too great by the organization Children First Foundation, which is helping the girls.
Links to other sites: The Age, Melbourne (video), Times, UK, Royal Children’s Hospital page on the twins’ “incredible journey”
An estimated 1,000 people known as Forgotten Australians were part of a large crowd that attended a ceremony in Canberra, Australia Sunday 15 November where Prime Minister Kevin Rudd formally apologized to the estimated 70,000 people who were abused in state care from about 1930-1970, many of them part of a group of British children forced to migrate to Australia and work as forced labour on farms, some of them sexually abused as children. The British prime minister will also formally apologize in 2010 for the British forced migration policy, his office has announced.
Links to other sites: ABC, Australia, BBC, Sydney Morning Herald
Twickenham, London, England and Cardiff, Wales (GenevaLunch) - England lost to the Wallabies 9-18 despite the return of Jonny Wilkinson and a much improved performance in the line-outs. Wilkinson scored all the England points and put in some crunching defensive tackles but the England team was short of offensive ideas and was dominated in the second half. The star player for the Australians was their young scrum-half Will Genia.
In the other big rugby union match the New Zealand All Blacks extended their undefeated record against Wales, who last beat the New Zealanders in 1953.
An oil rig in the Timor Sea, about 300km off the northwestern coast of Australia, has caught fire as company officials were trying to plug a leak with heavy mud Sunday, their fourth attempt at doing so. The rig has been leaking between 300-400 barrels of oil a day since 21 August. Oil workers and firefighters were evacuated from the rig safely.
Links to other sites:Bloomberg, Sydney Morning Herald
Oil-covered protesters demonstrated outside the offices of a Bangkok-based well operator in Perth Thursday 29 October to protest a leaking oil well in the Timor Sea, off the northwest coast of Australia. The well, 2.6km below the ocean floor, has been leaking oil and gas into the sea since 21 August. Concerns are being voiced about responsibility as the slick heads towards the Indonesian coast.
The company, Thai-based PTTEP, has tried three times to plug the leak with heavy mud. A fourth attempt has been delayed because of equipment failure. The cost of plugging the leak is estimated at $160 million. No cost estimates have been made public for the clean up.
The Australian upper house voted 29 October to make public by 16 November a government investigation into the environmental impacts of the spill. The government has come under criticism in recent for several of its environmental policy decisions. ABC, Bloomberg, Sydney Morning Herald
Five Sydney men have been found guilty of preparing terrorist acts in one of Australia’s longest criminal trials, which began in November 2008 and involved 180 “sitting days” in a specially-built courtroom. The jury was out for 23 days deliberating. The men, charged with possessing chemicals and bomb-making instructions, cannot be named for legal reasons. They are expected to be sentenced in December. BBC, Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Nineteen countries have now secured their places in the Fifa World Cup finals to be held in South Africa in 2010 after the penultimate games in the qualification series. In the African group Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire are through and six places are up for grabs. Australia, Japan and the two Koreas take the Asian places with one more team entering a playoff with New Zealand. Seven of the 13 European places are decided:
Australia’s central bank announced Tuesday 6 October that it is raising its key interest rate from 3.00 to 3.25 percent, and analysts say more increases are on the way. The Reserve Bank cited improved economic conditions and a stronger Australian economy. The country thus becomes the first in the group of 20 major economies, the G20 countries, to raise rates after the cuts seen worldwide in the past 12 months. The Age reports that if banks pass along the rate hike to clients it will mean Aus$40 a month more on a home loan of Aus$300,000.
Links to other sites: ABC News, Australia, The Age, Financial Times
Sixteen-year-old Jessica Watson is expected to arrive in Sydney Monday afternoon Australia time after fighting winds to 33 knots and heavy swells. Watson says she is determined to make a bid to be the youngest person ever to sail solo around the globe, and her parents are behind her, but one snag could be the fallout from a Maritime Safety Queensland report issued after she collided with a cargo ship 9 September concluded that she may have fallen asleep and that she “had kept ‘irregular latitude and longitude entries’ in her log, had no course plots nor a fatigue management plan” according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Links to other sites: jessicawatson, Watson’s blog at youngestround.blogspot.com, news.com.au
Johannesburg, South Africa (GenevaLunch) – New Zealand beat Pakistan by five wickets in their semi-final to set up a contest with Australia for the ICC champions trophy. Pakistan’s batsmen never really got going and only reached their modest total of 233 for nine, thanks to a half century by Umar Akmal and a late flourish by the tail enders.
A second earthquake in under 24 hours, measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale, shook southern Sumatra in Indonesia Thursday morning 1 October. Sumatrans were still recovering from the earlier, stronger earthquake in the port of Padang which has left at least 400 dead and many people trapped under collapsed buildings. The death toll could climb into the thousands, officials fear.
The earthquakes come days after a strong tremor shook the Pacific islands of Samoa, leaving many villages flattened and over 100 people dead. Experts say that the earthquakes are all on the edge of the Australian tectonic plate where it comes into contact with the Eurasian plate, in the case of the Sumatra earthquakes, and where it bumps up against the Pacific plate in the case of the Samoa earthquake. BBC, CNN, Reuters
Riverside Stadium, Durham, England (GenevaLunch) - England at last won a one-day international, but still lost the series against Australia by an embarrassing 1-6. The Australians were bowled out for a mediocre 176 runs with Graeme Swann taking 5 for 28.
An Australian border protection patrol intercepted a boat with 60 suspected asylum-seekers on board about 420 km north of the Australian city of Broome, Western Australia late Tuesday 15 September. It was the fourth such interception in two weeks. The asylum-seekers will be sent to a detention centre on Christmas Island. Their nationality was not immediately known.
Immigration policy under the previous Australian government of John Howard was widely criticized for letting illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers, including children, languish in camps on the islands of Nauru and Manus. The current Rudd government has continued the robust interdiction of people-smuggling, but detainees who pose no threat to the community must be processed within six months.
The government blames the continued flow of people on conflicts in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. BBC, Sydney Morning Herald
Drivers in the Pacific island nation of Samoa all switched to driving on the left-hand side of the road at 06:00 local time Tuesday 8 September to the sound of fire engine sirens, horns, clapping and car horns. Police and government workers were stationed at intersections around the main town Apia, and traffic was particularly heavy because many drivers wanted to take part in the historic moment. The town’s traffic lights were turned on for the occasion. The government introduced the change to the left to avoid importing expensive left-hand drive cars from the US. It hopes to be able to import used right-hand drive cars from Australia and New Zealand. BBC, New Zealand Herald, Pacific Islands Report
Some 700,000 homes along the coastline in Australia are at risk from erosion as sea levels rise: the government says it expects the level to rise by one meter within 40 years, thanks to global warming. Some homes have already lost substantial amounts of land around them, from storms but also higher water levels, reports Reuters.
