Indonesian police had seized around 38,000 marijuana plants within Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in East Java, Indonesia. PHOTO: CNA
CNA – Tens of thousands of marijuana plants were discovered within Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in East Java, Indonesia, with authorities seizing approximately 38,000 plants during an operation on Tuesday.
Director of Drug Detection for East Java Police Robert Da Costa told Indonesian media outlets that the land where the plants were found spanned approximately 1.5 hectares. The marijuana was planted in isolated and rugged mountain terrain to “hinder detection by authorities”, Da Costa said.
Four suspects have been detained as authorities seek to identify key figures behind the illegal operation. “They have been planting marijuana since January 2024,” Da Costa said.
From January to September, some plants were harvested and others were not,” he added.
Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws, including the death penalty for traffickers. Cannabis, for consumption or even medical purposes, remains illegal in the country despite growing calls across the world for legalisation.
The illegal operation to cultivate the plants began earlier in January, Da Costa said, with some areas found to have been already harvested while others remained untouched. Police investigations began on September 19 after local authorities discovered 453 marijuana plants growing on the slopes of Mount Semeru in the village of Argosari.
Subsequent searches led to the discovery of much larger marijuana fields, with plants recorded standing between 1.5 and two metres tall.
Indonesian police had seized around 38,000 marijuana plants within Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in East Java, Indonesia. PHOTO: CNA
A youth walks past a wall bearing portraits of killed gunmen and an expression in Arabic which reads ‘Balata camp, crucible of men, bastion of the free’ at the Balata camp for Palestinian refugees east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. PHOTO: AFP
BALATA (AFP) – Newly freed from an Israeli prison, Wael Masha rode atop friends’ shoulders through the streets of his West Bank refugee camp before bursting into his home to kiss his mother’s feet.
Less than a year later, those friends carried the 18-year-old’s body through the same streets after Israeli forces killed him in an air strike, describing him as an armed militant who posed a threat to Israeli forces.
His journey was not unique: Masha is one of at least three Palestinians born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank who were arrested as teenagers, released during a brief truce in the Gaza war last November, then killed in intensifying Israeli military operations in the territory.
Israel said its raids and air strikes in the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967, reflect the scope of the security threat it faces from Palestinian combatants.
His family and others like them say Israel is fuelling the problem it claims to be fighting, arresting young men – Masha was 17 when he was taken into custody – then abusing them in custody, ultimately driving them to seek revenge.
In his will, he instructed his mother: “When you hear the news of my martyrdom, do not cry, but ululate.”
While some memorial posters show Masha brandishing an automatic weapon, his mother remembers him differently.
A youth walks past a wall bearing portraits of killed gunmen and an expression in Arabic which reads ‘Balata camp, crucible of men, bastion of the free’ at the Balata camp for Palestinian refugees east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. PHOTO: AFPThe family of Wael Masha poses for a picture with his portraits at the Palestinian refugee camp east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. PHOTO: AFP
“He loved studying and repairing computers and mobile phones,” Hanadi Masha told AFP in the family home in Balata refugee camp, east of Nablus, surrounded by pictures of her smiling son.
Perhaps this interest could have turned into a career, she added. But “after he got out of prison, he had a grudge because of everything he saw inside”.
The fallout from the nearly year-old war in Gaza has reverberated across the West Bank, where the Health Ministry said at least 680 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers since Hamas’ October 7 attack.
Israeli officials said 24 Israelis, including troops, have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period.
Even before the war, Israeli round-ups of Palestinian men were common, including the one in November 2022 in which Masha was detained. The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said there are at least 250 Palestinians under the age of 18 currently in Israeli custody. “The occupation does not hesitate to arrest children under 18 years old… The widespread arrests have nothing to do with any armed action,” said Hilmi al-Araj of the Palestinian civil society group Hurryyat.
Israeli authorities took Masha to Megiddo prison in northern Israel and sentenced him to two and a half years on charges they never disclosed to his family.
His surprise release came during a weeklong truce in Gaza in November 2023, the only one of the war so far, during which Palestinian militants released 105 hostages seized on October 7, the Israelis among them in exchange for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Once out, Masha recounted a host of abuses: being instructed to kiss the Israeli flag, being burned with cigarette butts.
His father Bilal said the experience was “a huge shock” that “changed things completely” for him. “My son entered as a cub and came out as a lion,” he said. Israel has not explained the precise circumstances of Masha’s death, and his parents said they do not know what he was doing when an Israeli strike killed him on August 15.
They only know that the day before the strike Masha said he received a threatening phone call from an Israeli officer warning: “It’s your turn.”
The details are clearer for Tariq Daoud, a second Palestinian teenager who was detained with Masha and released on the same day of the November truce.
Like Masha, Daoud said he was beaten at Megiddo prison, his brother Khaled told AFP at the family home in Qalqilyah, where children wear necklaces featuring his face.
Khaled said the abuse produced false confessions from Tariq – aged 16 when he was arrested – on charges including possessing an illegal firearm and attempting to build explosives.
Incarceration “shattered all his ambitions”, which had included potentially becoming an engineer or a doctor, Khaled said.
Instead he joined Hamas’ armed wing.
In the same week that Masha was killed, Tariq opened fire on an Israeli settler in Azzun, and Israeli troops shot him dead at the scene.
Israeli officials have not yet released his body, but Khaled still visits his plot at the Qalqilyah cemetery every day to water the flowers.
“I go because I feel that there is something of his presence,” Khaled said.
Back in the Balata camp, Masha’s mother Hanadi has found her own ways to honour her son, talking about him with his four younger siblings and stroking pictures of his beard – just like she playfully greeted him when he was alive.
An aerial photo shows the flooded area after heavy rain in Wajima, Ishikawa prefecture in Japan. PHOTO: AP
TOKYO (AFP) – Rescuers yesterday recovered the body of a ninth victim of severe floods which battered parts of central Japan last week, local media said.
A woman’s body was found near a river in Wajima city, reports said, where some 50 centimetres of rain fell in 48 hours to Sunday evening – a local record and more than double the usual precipitation for this time of the year. Regional police and government officials could not immediately confirm the report by broadcaster NHK, having previously confirmed eight deaths from the flooding.
Some 367 residents in 46 communities remained isolated because of landslides and other obstacles, according to the Ishikawa prefecture government.
Emergency shelters housed more than 600 people on Tuesday.
The floods came as the area makes a fragile recovery from a magnitude-7.5 earthquake on New Year’s Day, which toppled buildings, triggered tsunami waves and sparked a major fire.
Japan is prone to natural disasters and routinely faces serious flooding and landslide damages.
An aerial photo shows the flooded area after heavy rain in Wajima, Ishikawa prefecture in Japan. PHOTO: APA flooded street in Wajima. PHOTO: AP
Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in the southern village of Sejoud, Marjayoun, south Lebanon. PHOTO: AP
AFP – Lebanon said 15 people were killed in Israeli strikes yesterday, including two rare strikes in mountain areas outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds in the south and east.
The Health Ministry said an Israeli strike on the village of Joun in the Chouf mountains, southeast of Beirut, killed four people.
Another Israeli strike killed three people in Maaysra – a mountain area about 25 kilometres north of Beirut. Eight people were killed in Israeli strikes in the south, the ministry said.
Earlier, a Lebanese security official had told AFP “an Israeli strike targeted a house in the village of Maaysra”, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
A resident said the strike hit her village, destroying a house and a cafe. Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that “two rockets fell in Maaysra”.
The focus of Israel’s firepower has shifted sharply from Gaza to Lebanon in recent days.
Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in the southern village of Sejoud, Marjayoun, south Lebanon. PHOTO: AP
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau delivers a speech during a handover ceremony at the Interior Ministry in Paris, France. PHOTO: AFP
PARIS (AFP) – France’s conservative interior minister yesterday vowed consequences after a Moroccan man suspected of murdering a 19-year-old university student and leaving her body in a Paris forest was arrested in Switzerland.
A source close to the case, speaking to AFP, identified the alleged attacker as a 22-year-old man of Moroccan nationality. Prosecutors have said the suspect had been previously convicted of rape and had been the subject of an order to leave France.
The killing of the student is expected to further inflame political tensions in France where the newly installed right-wing government plans to crack down on immigration.
“This is an abominable crime,” said Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau. Retailleau, who on Monday took over from his predecessor Gerald Darmanin, has vowed to boost law and order, tighten immigration legislation and make it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes.
“It is up to us, as public leaders, to refuse to accept the inevitable and to develop our legal arsenal, to protect the French,” he added.
“If we have to change the rules, let’s change them.”
Last Saturday, the body of a student was discovered in the Bois de Boulogne park in western Paris, not far from the Universite Paris-Dauphine she attended.
Authorities have only released the first name of the victim, Philippine.
A Moroccan national was arrested on Tuesday in the Swiss canton of Geneva and was identified as a suspect in a murder committed in Paris, a spokeswoman for the Swiss Justice Ministry told AFP.
“The Federal Office of Justice then ordered detention for extradition purposes on the basis of an arrest request from France,” she added.
The student had last been seen at the university last Friday.
Witnesses had reported seeing a man with a pickaxe, said one police source.
According to the prosecutors, in 2021 the man was convicted of rape committed in 2019, when he was a minor. He had been released in June having serving out his sentence, then placed in an administrative detention centre, according to the source close to the case.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau delivers a speech during a handover ceremony at the Interior Ministry in Paris, France. PHOTO: AFP
AP – California Governor Gavin Newsom in the United States (US) signed several gun control measures on Tuesday, including one that allows the court to consider stalking and animal cruelty as grounds to restrict access to firearms.
The state already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. The new laws signed by Newsom will expand restrictions on who could own firearms, prevent the proliferation of “ghost guns” and increase protections for domestic violence survivors.
“California won’t wait until the next school shooting or mass shooting to act,” the democratic governor said in a statement.
“In the absence of congressional action, our state is once again leading the way by strengthening our nation-leading gun laws.”
Under the new laws, a judge can consider stalking, acts of animal cruelty or threats of violence as evidence for a gun violence restraining order.
A person who has a misdemeanor charge dismissed because they were found to be mentally incompetent will also be prohibited from possessing a gun. Current laws only apply such restrictions to cases involving felony charges.
Another law targets ghost guns by requiring law enforcement agencies to prohibit their contracted vendors from selling guns meant to be destroyed. The measure received bipartisan support from the Legislature.
The new laws also aim at providing more protections for domestic violence survivors. There will be fewer exceptions for police officers to continue carrying a gun if they were perpetrators of domestic violence. Law enforcement is also required to take away firearms from offenders.
A person walks in the rain after the passing of Hurricane John in Marquelia, Mexico. PHOTO: AP
AP – Tropical Storm Helene was rapidly strengthening in the Caribbean Sea and became a hurricane yesterday while moving north along Mexico’s coast toward the United States (US), prompting residents to evacuate, schools to close and officials to declare emergencies in Florida and Georgia.
The storm was forecasted at “near hurricane strength” when it passed near Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula early yesterday, the US National Hurricane Centre said, and to “intensify and grow in size” as it moves north across the Gulf of Mexico.
Heavy rainfall was forecast for the southeastern US starting yesterday, with a “life-threatening storm surge” along the entire west coast of Florida, according to the centre.
Helene is expected to become a major hurricane – a Category 3 or higher – today, the day it’s set to reach Florida’s Gulf Coast, according to the hurricane centre.
The centre has issued hurricane warnings for part of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and Florida’s northwestern coastline, where large storm surges of up to 4.5 metres were expected. Mexico is still reeling from former Hurricane John battering its other coast. John hit the country’s southern Pacific coast late Monday, killing two people, blowing tin roofs off houses, triggering mudslides and toppling scores of trees, officials said on Tuesday.
John grew into a Category 3 hurricane in a matter of hours on Monday and made landfall about 128 kilometres east of the resort of Acapulco, near the town of Punta Maldonado, with maximum sustained winds of 193 kilometre per hour before weakening to a tropical storm after moving inland.
Helene, which formed on Tuesday in the Caribbean, is expected to move over deep, warm waters, fuelling its intensification.
People in regions under hurricane warnings and watches should be prepared to lose power and should have enough food and water for at least three days, forecasters warned.
A person walks in the rain after the passing of Hurricane John in Marquelia, Mexico. PHOTO: AP
A man cuts the giant Guinness World Record cheesecake at the annual Cream Cheese Festival in Lowville, New York, United States. PHOTO: UPI
UPI – An annual Cream Cheese Festival in Lowville, New York hosted a successful Guinness World Record attempt featuring a 15,008-pound cheesecake.
The Kraft-Heinz plant in Lowville set the record for the world’s largest cheesecake at the festival in 2013, but was beaten by a team from Russia who made a 9,347-pound cheesecake in 2017.
Quality manager Derrick Langdon at Kraft-Heinz, said he and his team decided to smash the previous record at this year’s festival.
“If you’re going to beat it, might as well go big,” Langdon told WWNY-TV. “We decided we’re going to smash that record, make it almost twice as big as the last one. If they were going to beat it, they’d have to go really big. It was go big.”
A Guinness World Records adjudicator was present for the cheesecake’s unveiling and confirmed it weighed in at 15,008 pounds, more than enough to reclaim the title.
“This is just unbelievable,” Cream Cheese Festival Chair Jeremiah Papineau said. “To have a record in 2013, and to win the record again this year, it just shows how this community comes together, and we couldn’t be more proud.” The cheesecake was sliced and served to festival attendees. The leftovers were donated to local food banks.
A man cuts the giant Guinness World Record cheesecake at the annual Cream Cheese Festival in Lowville, New York, United States. PHOTO: UPI
A woman passes by an artwork by Jasleen Kaur during the Turner Prize 2024 press preview at Tate Britain in London, part of the 40th anniversary exhibition. PHOTO: AP
LONDON (AP) – A large concrete sculpture of a bracelet referencing the excesses of former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos and a collection of portraits focusing on Black men and women are among the eclectic artwork shortlisted for the prestigious Turner Prize.
Four artists – Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson, Jasleen Kaur and Delaine Le Bas – were shortlisted for the GBP25,000 (USD33,000) visual arts prize, which was established in 1984 and is awarded annually to a British contemporary artist.
The artworks are on public display at the Tate Britain museum in London from Wednesday, and the winner will be announced on December 3.
Abad, who grew up in the Philippines, used sculptures and intricate drawings of British museum artefacts to reflect on colonial and overlooked histories. His striking three-metre concrete bracelet, titled Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite, critiques Marcos’ notoriously lavish lifestyle.
The sculpture is “a reimagination of Imelda Marcos’ ostentatious 30-carat ruby, diamond and pearl bracelet as a colossal concrete effigy,” Abad wrote.
Johnson, a painter known for her large portraits of Black subjects, aims to counter the marginalisation of Black people in European art history. Her paintings feature herself and her family, and one piece, Pieta, is her response to the death of George Floyd in 2020.
The other two on the shortlist are Kaur, a Glasgow-born artist who uses eclectic objects like a vintage Ford car covered with a giant crocheted doily and immersive music to reflect on her upbringing in Glasgow’s Sikh community; and Le Bas, who filled three rooms with painted fabrics and sculptures drawing on her Roma heritage.
“This year’s artists each make vibrant and varied work that reflects not just their personal memories and familial stories, but also speaks to wider questions of identity, myth, belonging and community,” said Alex Farquharson, chair of the Turner Prize jury.
Named for 19th-Century landscape painter JMW Turner, the award helped make stars of sculptor Anish Kapoor, shark-pickling artist Damien Hirst and filmmaker Steve McQueen.
A woman passes by an artwork by Jasleen Kaur during the Turner Prize 2024 press preview at Tate Britain in London, part of the 40th anniversary exhibition. PHOTO: AP
Construction cranes near the central business district in Beijing, China. PHOTO: AP
AP – Developing economies in Asia are forecast to grow at a 5.0 per cent annual pace this year, helped by a strong United States (US) economy and surging demand for computer chips that power artificial intelligence, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in a report yesterday.
The forecast was revised upward slightly from the ADB’s April estimate of 4.9 per cent growth.
However, the regional lender warned of the potential threat of more protectionist measures, such as higher tariffs on exports from China, depending on the outcome of the US presidential election.
The report highlighted several positive trends, including a rebound in exports from Asia of computer chips and other advanced electronics this year due to rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). It also noted that energy and food prices are moderating, though inflation remains painfully high in countries such as Pakistan, Laos and Myanmar.
The upturn in global demand for semiconductors and related electronics materials and components has helped drive stronger growth in Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, and to a lesser extent, the Philippines and Thailand, and that trend is expected to continue.
The report cited data from World Semiconductor Trade Statistics projecting that spending on memory chips, vital for AI applications, will expand 77 per cent this year.
Construction cranes near the central business district in Beijing, China. PHOTO: AP
Other types of exports, especially autos from China and South Korea, also are growing quickly, it said.
The US presidential election is a major source of uncertainty.
Former President Donald Trump has pledged to stop US businesses from shipping jobs overseas and to take other countries’ jobs and factories away by relying heavily on sweeping tariffs. Vice President Kamala Harris has criticised Trump’s plan to impose large tariffs on most imported goods, which she says would severely raise the cost of goods.
Asia’s developing economies are also vulnerable to other US moves that might affect their currencies or the cost of borrowing on foreign loans, the report said.
China’s ailing property market remains a key risk and the report kept its forecasts for growth for the world’s second-largest economy at 4.8 per cent in 2024 and 4.5 per cent next year. ADB’s Chief Economist Albert Park welcomed a flurry of fresh measures announced on Tuesday by Beijing to cut borrowing costs and encourage more home purchases.
“It’s good to see. Certainly there’s room for monetary policy expansion,” he told reporters in a briefing before the report’s release. “Whether that will work remains to be seen.”
Among other positive developments, the report noted that energy inflation has returned to levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. That alleviates pressures on some economies that depend heavily on imports of oil and other fuels, such as Sri Lanka, China and Japan. Food inflation is still slightly higher, but falling. Rice prices fell by 12 per cent to USD589 per metric tonne in late August after hitting a 16-year peak of USD669 per metric tonne in late January, the report said.
They are expected to fall further, as rice harvests are projected to hit record levels in the 2024-2025 growing year, and prices for wheat and maize also have declined. Crops are likely to benefit from the La Nina climate phenomenon, which could bring beneficial higher rainfall to some regions though it also could cause destructive flooding in others.
