FIRST THAI BABIES DIAGNOSED WITH ZIKA- LINKED MICROCEPHALY: MINISTRY
BANGKOK: Thai health authorities said Friday that the Zika virus caused microcephaly in two babies, in what is believed to be Southeast Asia’s first confirmed case of a link between the sickness and the birth defect. “Two of the three infants ( tested) had microcephaly due to the Zika virus,” Health Ministry official Wicharn Pawan told AFP.
TWO ACCUSED IN S. AFRICAN COURT FOR ‘ FREEING’ PENGUIN
PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa- Two men have appeared in court in South Africa accused of stealing a penguin called “Buddy” from a marine park and releasing him into the sea, police said Friday. Adrian Donian, 22, and Emile du Plessis, 24, made a brief appearance in Port Elizabeth magistrate’s court Thursday on charges of theft and malicious damage to property. Buddy, an endangered African black- footed penguin, was taken from Bayworld Oceanarium in Port Elizabeth in a nighttime raid last week, triggering international concern over his fate as he is likely to die in the wild. He was wrapped in a shirt, bundled in a car and taken the short distance to the coast where he was released into the Indian Ocean. The two men handed themselves into Humewood police station in the city on Thursday accompanied by their lawyer. Bayworld manager Dylan Bailey this week told AFP that they had confessed to the crime and said it was a demonstration against animals being kept in captivity. But Bailey said Buddy, three, would not survive in the sea as he cannot hunt or fend for himself. “The two men were charged and immediately appeared in court the same day and released on warning,” police spokeswoman Priscilla Naidu told AFP. “The case was postponed for further investigation. They will appear again in a month’s time.”
HURRICANE MATTHEW GROWS TO CATEGORY TWO IN CARIBBEAN
MIAMI - Hurricane Matthew strengthened to a Category Two storm early Friday as it churned in the Caribbean near the island of Curacao, US weather forecasters said. The hurricane was packing winds near 100 miles per hour (155 kilometers per hour) with higher gusts, the National Hurricane Center said. That makes it a Category Two storm on a scale of one to five, with five being the strongest. It was expected to continue to strengthen over the next 48 hours, and could become a major hurricane later Friday, forecasters said. A tropical storm watch has been issued for Curacao and Aruba, where two to four inches (five to 10 centimeters) of rain are expected through Saturday. The area from the Colombia-Venezuela border west to Riohacha was also under a tropical storm watch, with possible inclement conditions within the next 24 to 36 hours. Matthew could generate life-threatening swells and rip currents affecting the coasts of Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Venezuela and Colombia in the coming days, the hurricane center said. At 0600 GMT, Matthew was about 125 miles north of Curacao and 565 miles southeast of Kingston, Jamaica. It was moving to the west at 14 miles per hour.
CAR BOMB EXPLODES NEAR EGYPT PROSECUTOR
CAIRO: A car bomb exploded in a Cairo suburb after Egypt’s deputy prosecutor general drove by late Thursday, wounding a passerby, the interior ministry said. “A bomb in a car parked on the side of the road exploded after deputy prosecutor general Zakareya Abdel Aziz drove past” in an upmarket district of eastern Cairo, it said in a statement. It said Abdel Aziz and his bodyguards were unharmed but “a civilian was wounded”. Amid a wave of Islamist violence, prosecutor general Hisham Barakat was killed in a June 2015 car bombing in the Egyptian capital. Hundreds of soldiers and policemen have also died in jihadist attacks since the military overthrew Egypt’s Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.