Rat infestation closes India’s Albert Hall Museum of royal treasures

A rat infestation is threatening one of India’s finest collections of royal artefacts at the country’s own Albert Hall – now a museum in the Rajasthani city of Jaipur.

With the rodents causing havoc on the grounds and closing in on the building and its treasures, the Albert Hall Museum has been closed to visitors for two days as pest control experts are called in.

The museum was opened in 1887 and named after Queen Victoria’s son Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales. It houses the belongings of generations of several Jaipur royal families and attracted between 900,000 and 1 million visitors in the last financial year, bringing in revenues of at least Rs50m (£450,000), officials told The Independent.

Now a team of some 30 pest control workers are racing to deal with the rat problem, placing pesticide-laced baits at points near rat holes in the museum and its historic grounds, officials from the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) said.

The pesticide-laced baits contain fodder, zinc phosphate and edible oil to lure and kill the rats who have chewed their way through much of the gardens and the lanes around the museum.

Roads leading to the museum will also remain closed and the site is not expected to reopen until Wednesday, assuming the operation has been successful.

The costly intervention is being made to protect some of the city’s most cherished historical artefacts, including a 2,346-year-old Egyptian Tutu mummy’s sarcophagus, a giant 17th-century Persian carpet measuring 8.5m by 4m, and firearms and armoury of Indian soldiers from the famous Rajput warrior clan.

Other glass-cased exhibits of swords, pistols, daggers, battle axes, spears, lances, revolvers, guns, gunpowder flasks, leg and arm guards, shoes, chest covers, helmets, and knuckle guards, air guns and bows-and-arrows which were used by the royal family of Jaipur and their army have been carefully guarded for over a century at the Albert Hall Museum, the superintendent in charge of the premises told The Independent.

“For nearly 138 years after the Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, had laid the foundation stone of the museum in 1876, the authorities have looked after the royal family’s belongings at the museum. Some of the most precious artefacts from history are placed here,” Mohammad Arif, the superintendent of the museum said.

While the rats have not yet caused significant damage to the museum building itself and the artefacts inside remain unharmed, Mr Arif said the fear was that the rodents could chew their way up into the museum from underground if left unchecked.

Large mounds of earth have been observed in the museum’s historical Ramnivas garden, where street-side hawkers and vendors sell food, he said.

“We have protected the exhibits and kept them safe but the JDA authorities did not want to risk the infestation attack[ing] some of the most precious items collected over centuries and civilisations,” he told The Independent.

Hong Kong taxi driver and passenger escape as car plunges into sinkhole

A Hong Kong taxi driver and his passenger managed to escape after a portion of a road collapsed, plunging their vehicle into a sinkhole.

The driver, 59, and a 47-year-old male passenger managed to get out of the car after it got stuck in the sinkhole at Lai Chi Kok Road around 12.30am (local time) on Sunday.

A video from the incident showed water gushing out of the sinkhole while the red car was getting pulled inside. While the passenger reportedly did not sustain injuries, the driver was rushed to a hospital with complaints of dizziness and weakness in the limbs.

The taxi driver, surnamed Siu, told The Standard newspaper that he was driving toward Kwun Tong district with a passenger when he noticed the road flooding.

Mr Siu said he attempted to switch from the slow to the fast lane, but had to slow to a stop because of a bus.

There was a loud bang, and suddenly the taxi tilted to the left, he recalled. The driver and the passenger exited the vehicle as the water reached their ankles, he said, adding the passenger left on another taxi.

Mr Siu said he had never encountered such an incident in his 20 years of driving.

Local authorities cordoned off the area and closed a section of the road, diverting buses and other vehicles. The five-metre-deep sinkhole and water gushing out of it flooded three traffic lanes, The Standard reported.

A 75cm-wide pipe along the road burst open, causing the sinkhole, the water supplies department in Hong Kong confirmed. “Our engineering team is carrying out clean-up work with the assistance of police,” it said on Facebook.

It said for the safety of road users, the officials have arranged a radar detection of pipelines near the sinkhole. The department “will work with the Drainage Services Department and the Highways Department for further inspection to understand the cause of the incident and the necessary scope and details for road repairs”.

The water department added that there would be no impact on the overall supply of water as only a section of the pipe had been suspended.

India and Pakistan spar at UN after Shehbaz Sharif likens people of Kashmir to Palestinians

India and Pakistan sparred over Kashmir at the UN General Assembly after Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif drew parallels between the people of the Himalayan territory and Palestinians.

Kashmir is at the heart of a decades-old dispute between India and Pakistan, where both countries claim the region as theirs, but control only parts of it.

“Similarly, like the people of Palestine, the people of Jammu and Kashmir too, have struggled for a century for their freedom and right to self-determination,” Mr Sharif claimed in his speech on Friday.

“Instead of moving towards peace, India has resiled from its commitments to implement the Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.

The United Nations Security Council Resolution adopted in 1948 called upon the governments of the new dominions of India and Pakistan to refrain in any way from aggravating the situation in Kashmir.

He claimed that to “secure durable peace” India must “reverse the unilateral and illegal measures it has taken” five years back. New Delhi must “enter into a dialogue for a peaceful resolution to the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security [Council] resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people,” Mr Sharif added.

The Indian government led by prime minister Narendra Modi scrapped the Muslim-majority region’s semi-autonomous status and downgraded the former state to a federally governed territory. It was also divided into two federal territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir, ruled directly by New Delhi, allowing it to appoint administrators to run the territories.

Mr Sharif also accused India of extra-judicial killings, prolonged curfews, and other “draconian measures” in the region.

India used its right to reply at the General Assembly to hit back at Pakistan, calling Mr Sharif’s speech a “travesty”.

“A country, run by the military, with a global reputation for terrorism, narcotics trade and transnational crime has had the audacity to attack the world’s largest democracy,” said the first secretary in India’s permanent mission to the UN, Bhavika Mangalanandan.

She accused Pakistan of having long “employed cross-border terrorism as a weapon against its neighbours”.

“For such a country to speak about violence anywhere is hypocrisy at its worst.”

Pakistan has routinely raised the Kashmir row at the UN, which always draws a response from India.

For the first time in five years since the abrogation of the special status, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan refrained from mentioning Kashmir in his speech at the UN.

“We maintain our will to develop our relations with BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa], which brings together emerging economies,” he said.

At least 41,586 Palestinians have been killed and 96,210 others injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza in nearly a year, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The war began in retaliation against Hamas’s 7 October attack on southern Israel, where nearly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and another 250 abducted.

At least 12 dead at illegal gold mine in Indonesia after landslide

Mud, rugged terrain and lack of telecommunications hampered rescue efforts Saturday after a landslide set off by torrential rains smashed down into an unauthorized gold mining operation on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, killing at least 12 people.

Villagers had been digging for grains of gold in the remote village in the Solok district of West Sumatra province when mud plunged down the surrounding hills and buried them on Thursday.

Several people managed to escape and some were pulled out by rescuers, said local search and rescue agency chief Abdul Malik. Eleven people were injured.

Malik said rescuers recovered 12 bodies, revising an earlier death toll of 15 after officials discovered that lack of communications and the remoteness of the village had affected the counting of the victims. Two other people are believed still missing under tons of mud, he said.

Rescuers earlier said the devastated area could only be reached by walking for four hours from the nearest settlement.

“Relief efforts for the dead and missing were hampered by rugged terrain and blocked roads covered by thick mud and debris,” Malik said, adding that many residents also did not want outsiders, including search and rescue officers, to enter their traditional mining areas.

Informal mining operations are common in Indonesia, providing a tenuous livelihood to thousands who labor in conditions with a high risk of serious injury or death.

Landslides, flooding and collapses of tunnels are just some of the hazards facing miners. Much of gold ore processing involves highly toxic mercury and cyanide and workers frequently use little or no protection.

The country’s last major mining-related accident occurred in July when a landslide crashed onto an illegal traditional gold mine in Gorontalo province on Sulawesi island, killing at least 23 people.

In April 2022 a landslide hit another gold mine in North Sumatra’s Mandailing Natal district, killing 12 women.

In February 2019, a makeshift wooden structure in an illegal gold mine in North Sulawesi province collapsed partly due to shifting soil. More than 40 people were buried.

Chinese military announces drills, patrols in disputed South China Sea

China said its air and naval forces will take part in drills in the disputed area of the South China Sea hours after the country’s top diplomat discussed ways of reducing regional tension with his US counterpart.

Chinese forces will take part in the drills on Saturday, including “routine” early warning and reconnaissance exercises as well as patrols around Scarborough Shoal, China’s People’s Liberation Army said in a statement on social media.

“The theatre troops maintain a high degree of vigilance, resolutely defending national sovereignty, security and maritime rights and interests, (and) are firm in maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea,” it said.

The announcement comes after Australia and the Phillippines said their militaries would hold planned maritime drills with allies Japan, US and New Zealand in the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines.

The Scarborough Shoal is located 200km off the Philippines, within its exclusive economic zone, but China claims it to be part of its Zhongsha Islands.

The Scarborough Shoal, among other islands in the region, has been one of the most contested regions between Manila and Beijing. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague in 2016 ruled in favour of the Phillippines, rejecting China’s claims to a large swath of the regional waters. The ruling was ignored by China.

The tribunal did not determine sovereignty over the Scarborough Shoal, which it said was a traditional fishing ground for several countries.

The announcement of the Chinese naval manoeuvres comes after foreign minister Wang Yi met US secretary of state Antony Blinken in New York for talks that covered ways to avoid conflict in the South China Sea.

Mr Blinken in March had assured the Philippines its defence partnership with the US was “ironclad” after Manila accused Beijing of aggressive deployments in the South China Sea of its coast guard and fishing vessels suspected of being a maritime militia.

Manila this month called twenty of its allies to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session amid fears that one “wrong move” could escalate tensions in the contested waters.

The Philippines and China have exchanged accusations of intentionally ramming coast guard vessels in the disputed waters in recent months, including a violent clash in June in which a Filipino sailor lost a finger.

Mr Wang on Friday “emphasised that China insists on resolving differences with countries directly concerned through dialogue and consultation”, during the meeting, his ministry said in a statement.

Mr Blinken said he raised China’s “dangerous and destabilising actions” in the waters and discussed improving communication between the two nations’ militaries.

Mr Wang told Mr Blinken “the US should not always stir up trouble in the South China Sea and should not undermine the efforts of regional countries to maintain peace and stability”, the Chinese foreign ministry added.

A Beijing-based thinktank estimated that warships of various nations spent more than 20,000 days annually in the South China Sea, while more than 30,000 military aircraft traverse it.

The South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative said US Navy ships spent about 1,600 days at sea in the region.

Additional reporting by agencies

Australia museum can bar men from ‘Ladies Lounge’ exhibition

A museum in Australia was within its rights to bar men from a controversial art exhibit for women meant to underscore their exclusion from segments of the male-dominated society, a top regional court said on Friday.

The development is the latest in the long-running saga of the “Ladies Lounge” exhibition that has provoked an uproar in the art world. Its curator, Kirsha Kaechele, admitted in June she had created all the art, including the paintings she had billed for years as works by Spanish master Pablo Picasso without anyone noticing they were fake.

On Friday, Tasmania’s Supreme Court threw out on appeal an order for Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art, where the exhibit opened in 2020, to stop refusing male patrons entry to the show. It said the lower tribunal should have found that the “Ladies Lounge” was exempt from Australia’s gender discrimination law.

The appeals court asked Tasmania’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal to reconsider its ruling from April in the case brought by a disgruntled male visitor. It wasn’t immediately clear when the case would be revisited.

Associate Justice Shane Marshall wrote in his ruling Friday that the lower body was wrong when it decided the exhibition did not qualify for an exemption to gender discrimination laws. The exhibition was intended to promote equal opportunity for women – who suffer ongoing gender disadvantage – by excluding men, he said.

When the museum first lost the suit, Kaechele relocated the paintings to a women’s restroom at the gallery – rather than allow male visitors to see the art.

The fracas, however, continued, with the Guardian newspaper eventually questioning the authenticity of the art work after the museum published a picture of a supposed Picasso hanging above a toilet.

Friday’s ruling was a victory for Kaechele, who said in July that the purpose of the “Ladies Lounge” – open to all who identified as women – was to make men “feel as excluded as possible.”

Catherine Scott, a lawyer representing the museum, said the ruling Friday recognized that the “Ladies Lounge” challenged inequality by “providing a flipped universe where women experience advantage.”

During the hearings, Scott had presented a 2024 report card by the Australian government on gender equality, which shows that women working full-time earn 12% less than men.

Kaechele claimed the court’s decision reflected what she holds as “a simple truth: women are better than men.”

Jason Lau, the New South Wales resident who brought the case against the museum, did not appear in court — neither during the initial lawsuit nor during the appeal — and has never spoken publicly about it.

Lau’s lawyer, Greg Barns, said he was unable to comment on the case and did not respond to a request to speak to his client.

When the appeal hearing opened last week, Kaechele repeated her performance from earlier, showing up at the Supreme Court in Tasmania‘s city of Hobart surrounded by dozens of women supporters in navy-colored suits and wearing bright red lipstick. The women danced out of the court in single file, some holding placards denouncing men.

“Yes, the men, understandably, are a little grumpy about this,” Kaechele wrote on Instagram after Friday’s ruling. “They may even appeal. (They do not appeal to me.)”

When Kaechele announced in July that she had created the artwork at the exhibit, including the supposed Picasso paintings, she provoked a debate among art critics.

Detractors said that to knowingly display forgeries undermined a gallery’s credibility and that Kaechele was making a joke at her women patrons’ expense by passing off worthless trinkets as art.

But many gallery visitors appeared to be in on the act.

In March, a panelist on the Australian current events show “The Project” on Network 10 described being forced to wait outside while his female companions visited the exhibition.

“I begged to find out what happened, but no one said anything,” Sam Taunton told the program. “My girlfriend said it was the greatest experience of her life.”