Plastic found in stomach of dead whale
JAKARTA, Indonesia — A dead whale that washed ashore in eastern Indonesia had a large lump of plastic waste in its stomach, including drinking cups and flip-flops, a park official said Tuesday, causing concern among environmentalists and government officials in one of the world’s largest plastic polluting countries.
Rescuers from Wakatobi National Park found the rotting carcass of the 31-foot sperm whale late Monday near the park in Southeast Sulawesi province after receiving a report from environmentalists that villagers had surrounded the dead whale and were beginning to butcher the rotting carcass, park chief Heri Santoso said.
Santoso said researchers from wildlife conservation group World Wildlife Fund and the park’s conservation academy found about 13 pounds of plastic waste in the animal’s stomach containing 115 plastic cups, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, 2 flip-flops, a nylon sack and more than 1,000 other assorted pieces of plastic.
“Although we have not been able to deduce the cause of death, the facts that we see are truly awful,” said Dwi Suprapti, a marine species conservation coordinator at World Wildlife Fund Indonesia.
She said it was not possible to determine if the plastic had caused the whale’s death because of the animal’s advanced state of decay.
Fighting in Yemen undercuts truce call
SANAA, Yemen — Fighting between Saudi-led coalition forces and Yemen’s Shiite rebels flared again around the Red Sea port city of Hodeida despite U.N. calls for a cease-fire, Yemeni officials and witnesses said Tuesday.
The escalation, which followed a lull that had been in place since earlier this month, began late Monday with coalition airstrikes hitting the rebels, known as Houthis, in and around Hodeida.
The renewed fighting undermines the latest U.N. efforts to end the three-year war. The U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition has been battling the rebels since March 2015 to restore Yemen’s internationally recognized government to power. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed much of the country to the brink of starvation.
In Hodeida, fighting was also underway Tuesday in the main Khamsin Street in the city center and in al-Saleh district, officials and witnesses said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters; the witnesses did so for fear for their safety.
Yemen’s Information Minister Moammer al-Iryani said the Houthis shelled the city center and neighborhoods held by government forces. Meanwhile, the rebel-run Al Masirah TV said the rebels attacked government forces on a main road linking the capital, Sanaa, and Hodeida. Government forces had captured the road in September.
Earlier, the rebels said they’d fired a ballistic missile the previous night into Saudi Arabia in response to an attempted border incursion and another airstrike, and that they reserved the right to respond to attacks. The missile came hours after the rebels said they would halt all rocket fire into Saudi Arabia for the sake of peace efforts.
300 unpaid workers storm Parliament
Disgruntled police officers and other workers stormed the Parliament building in Papua New Guinea on Tuesday, breaking glass and overturning furniture as they demanded to be paid for their work during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting.
Harry Momos, a spokesman for Parliament, said about 300 people forced their way into the building in Port Moresby, the capital. The situation cooled Tuesday afternoon after the group met with the speaker of Parliament and the government finance minister, he said.
“We don’t expect any further damage or confrontation,” Momos said.
Papua New Guinea, the poorest of the 21 member economies in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, had a rare turn in the global spotlight as host of the group’s annual summit meeting, which ended Sunday. The Parliament raid Tuesday was an embarrassing footnote to the event.
Momos said the officers would be paid today.
The government of Papua New Guinea had been criticized for spending lavishly on the meeting, including $7 million on 40 Maserati sedans to ferry world leaders around the capital.
Airstrikes kill 37 extremists in Somalia
The U.S. military said it killed 37 Islamic extremists in two airstrikes in Somalia.
U.S. Africa Command, which carries out counterterrorism missions in Somalia and elsewhere in Africa, said in a statement Tuesday that both airstrikes were conducted Monday.
It said 27 members of the al-Shabab extremist group were killed in the first strike and 10 in the second. It said it believes no civilians were killed or injured.
Africa Command said the airstrikes were carried out in coordination with the government of Somalia.