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ShortTakes
Typhoon slams into Taiwan, 13 injured
TAIWAN: A powerful typhoon pounded Taiwan on Sunday with fierce winds
and torrential rains, causing thousands of people to flee their homes
and leaving at least 13 people injured, officials said.
Traffic was severely disrupted as Typhoon Sinlaku made landfall in
northeastern Ilan county early Sunday, packing winds of up to 173
kilometres (107 miles) per hour, the Central Weather Bureau said.
Hundreds of domestic and international flights have been cancelled on
the island, and around 500 passengers were stranded in Kinmen airport, a
Taiwan-controlled offshore island near the southeastern Chinese city of
Xiamen.
Traffic on 20 highways was interrupted by landslides caused by heavy
rains, which have accumulated to up to 1,000 millimetres (40 inches) in
some remote mountainous areas over the weekend.
Power and telephone services were also disrupted to nearly 100,000
households as trees were uprooted by the strong winds.
Taipei, Sunday, AFP
Somali pirates attack French ship off Seychelles
FRANCE: Somali pirates have tried to board a French tuna fishing boat
off the Seychelles but failed due to a heavy swell, France-Info radio
reported Sunday.
After failing to board the Drennec from the port of Concarneau in
Brittany, the pirates in a speedboat fired two rockets at the fishing
boat without claiming any victims or causing major damage, the radio
said.
The captain of the tuna boat, in a telephone interview with the radio
station, said that he like most other French and Spanish skippers
fishing in the area had decided to return to port in the Seychelles
pending naval protection.
Somalia, a poor Horn of Africa country riven by civil war and without
a functioning central government since 1991, has become a focal point
for world piracy over the past few months.
Many attacks take place along Somalia’s 3,700 kilometres (2,300
miles) of largely unpatrolled coast infested by pirates, who operate
high-powered speedboats and carry heavy machine guns and rocket
launchers.
In June, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution
authorising foreign warships to enter Somalia’s territorial waters with
the government’s consent to combat pirates and armed robbery at sea, but
it is yet to be implemented. In recent months, a multinational taskforce
based in Djibouti has been patrolling parts of the Gulf of Aden and the
Red Sea, where a pirate mothership is believed to be operating.
Paris, Sunday, AFP
Indonesia to appeal Tommy Suharto ruling
INDONESIA: Indonesia is to appeal a court ruling ordering it to give
Suharto’s youngest son 134 million dollars in assets seized from a
company linked to him, the Tempo daily reported Sunday.
Indonesia has ordered a bank to hand over 1.23 trillion rupiah (134
million dollars) belonging to Hutomo “Tommy” Mandala Putra’s now-defunct
car company in a move to bring the former dictator’s family to account
for alleged graft.
But the Supreme Court ruled last month that the government should
give the seized money to Tommy, Tempo said. State prosecutor Yoseph
Suardi Sabda told the paper he would “file a judicial review against the
ruling” once he received a copy.
Tommy, who was reputedly Suharto’s favourite child, enjoyed
privileged access to business deals during the heady years of crony
capitalism before the Asian financial crisis and his father’s 1998 fall.
Jakarta, Sunday AFP |
