Crocodiles found at Indian politician’s home after income tax raid

Indian tax officials raiding a former lawmaker’s house in Madhya Pradesh state’s Sagar city found three crocodiles in a pond.

The crocodiles were found on the property of Harvansh Singh Rathore, former member of the state assembly from the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

The officials, over the course of a three-day raid at properties linked to the politician, reportedly recovered 14kg gold and nearly Rs30m (£283,668) in cash and multiple luxury vehicles, NDTV quoted tax authorities as saying.

Mr Rathore was elected to the state assembly in 2013.

The raid was reportedly carried out following complaints of irregularities in transactions related to the former state lawmaker’s business of ‘bidi’, which is a handrolled local cigarette made from tobacco wrapped in a leaf of Coromandel ebony tree.

Mr Rathore reportedly claimed to have obtained permission to keep the crocodiles, despite it being illegal to keep crocodiles as pets in India.

The forest department was informed and an investigation launched, local media reports said.

Earlier this week, a Canadian man was arrested at the Delhi airport for carrying a crocodile skull in his luggage.

Customs officials stopped the 32-year-old man during a security check at Terminal 3 of Delhi’s international airport on Monday and found “a skull with sharp teeth, resembling the jaw of a baby crocodile” wrapped in a cloth.

The skull weighed about 777 grams, the customs department said in a statement on Thursday.

The man was arrested for violating India‘s Wildlife Protection Act and the skull was handed over to the forest department.

In September 2024, two people were caught at the Mumbai airport allegedly attempting to smuggle baby Caiman crocodiles.

The five baby reptiles were found concealed in toothpaste boxes in their hand luggage, according to the customs officials.

Teen detained for sending hoax bomb threats to Delhi schools

The Delhi police have arrested a teenager who allegedly sent hoax bomb threats in a bid to skip exams at his school.

The arrest of the student, studying in class 12 at a private school in Delhi, comes a day after at least 16 schools received threats of a bombing via email.

Police officials claim they have found crucial evidence that indicates the student was part of a group which had allegedly sent the threats to several schools for many months. The police are investigating the role of other students as well.

The minor reportedly sent bomb threat emails at least six times to different schools, except his own, and tagged multiple schools on the mail to avoid suspicion, officials said, reported NDTV.

He sent the emails as he did not want to appear for an exam and believed that the hoax bomb threats would disrupt the exams and get those cancelled, the police said.

In one instance, he sent one email of a bomb threat to 23 schools.

The emails sent by the student warned the schools of “massive and highly dangerous explosives” on the premises and demanded $30,000 (£24,400) to defuse those, reported The Indian Express.

As a result of the hoax bomb threats, students across Delhi schools were sent back and the police deployed a bomb squad with sniffer dogs over the campuses.

The first school to report the bomb threat sent in email was Tagore International School around 11.17am on Wednesday, followed by Bluebells School International at 11.40am. Other premier schools like Modern School, Mothers International School, Springdales School, GD Goenka Public School, Salwan Public School, Amity International School, Air Force Bal Bharati, Delhi Public School in Vasant Vihar also reported the email to the Delhi police.

“Using technical surveillance, police traced the location of one of the students and brought him in for questioning. He eventually told investigators that the emails had been sent by him and some other students,” said a police source familiar with the probe, reported The Indian Express.

The student had used Gmail to send out hoax bomb threats, police from South district said.

Daughter of late Filipino dictator banned from drinking on flights

The daughter of late Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos and her husband have been banned from drinking on airplanes and in airports after they got into a drunken brawl on a Jetstar flight.

Analisa Josefa Corr and James Alexander Corr caused a disturbance with their “disorderly behaviour” while intoxicated on a flight from Hobart to Sydney on 29 December, the Australian federal police said.

They had to be escorted off flight JQ720 by federal police.

Ms Corr was accused of “grabbing and shaking another passenger while exiting the aircraft toilet”.

“The pair were allegedly intoxicated and drinking alcohol they had brought with them onto the flight,” the federal police said.

The couple pleaded not guilty to charges of not complying with safety instructions and consuming liquor not served onboard.

Each charge carries a potential fine of up to A$13,750 (£6,925).

Ms Corr also denied a charge of assault onboard the aircraft. This charge carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison.

The couple were presented at the Downing Centre Local Court on Friday to vary their bail conditions and get their passports back. Their request was unopposed by a prosecutor for the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

A Jetstar spokesperson, without referring to the incident directly, said the airline “will never tolerate disruptive behaviour on our aircraft” and “the safety and wellbeing of customers and crew is our number-one priority”, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The case will be heard next on 24 February.

Ms Corr, 53, describes herself as an interior designer while her husband, 45, is a former soldier, Australian media reported.

The police have urged travellers to be “mindful of their behaviour at airports”. “You don’t want to start the new year with a significant fine or worse, behind bars,” Australian federal police Sergeant Luke Stockwell said.

Man arrested at airport with crocodile skull in luggage

A Canadian man was arrested at an Indian airport for carrying a crocodile skull in his luggage.

Customs officials stopped the 32-year-old man during a security check at Terminal 3 of Delhi’s international airport on Monday and found “a skull with sharp teeth, resembling the jaw of a baby crocodile” wrapped in a cloth.

The skull weighed 777 grams, the customs department said in a statement on Thursday.

The man was arrested for violating India‘s Wildlife Protection Act and the skull was handed over to the forest department.

Authorities registered a case against the suspect while “further investigation is underway”.

The forest department said the skull belonged to a species protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act.

“The texture, tooth pattern, well-developed bony palate, and nostrils confirmed the item as the skull of a baby crocodile,” it added.

The man was scheduled to leave on an Air Canada flight on Monday when he was caught. A forest official told The Times of India that the Canadian had bought the skull in Thailand.

“The man did not possess the mandatory permission required to carry wildlife items,” Rajesh Tandon, deputy forest range officer told the newspaper. “We will conduct further lab tests to identify the subspecies.”

Last year, a 32-year-old Canadian woman was stopped at the Delhi airport for carrying horns of an unidentified animal in her luggage. The woman claimed to have picked them up during a trek in the Ladakh region.

In a similar case in March last year, a 60-year-old man was caught while attempting to smuggle a ”wildlife trophy” out of India, police said.

Rescuers race to save 12 workers after gas explosion in coal mine

A rescue operation is underway to save 12 miners who were trapped in a coal mine in Pakistan following a gas explosion.

Abdul Ghani, a mines inspector, said the explosion occurred on Thursday night in Singidi, a town in Balochistan province around 40km from the provincial capital of Quetta.

He said rescue workers had been carefully removing debris from the mine for hours but they had not reached any of the miners yet.

“An operation has been launched to extract the miners. Efforts are being made to pull all the miners out alive,” he told the Dawn newspaper.

The explosion was caused by an accumulation of methane gas, the provincial mining department said.

Shahid Rind, spokesperson for the Balochistan government, said all available resources were being used to save the miners. He added that an investigation had been ordered to determine the cause of the mine’s collapse.

Mining accidents and explosions, blamed mainly on lax safety standards, have killed dozens of coal workers in Pakistan in recent years.

In June last year, 11 miners died after inhaling methane gas inside a coal mine in the Sanjdi area. Authorities said the miners were working around 1,500 ft deep when the methane gas escaped and spread. The mine owner was booked for alleged negligence the next day, according to media reports.

A few months earlier, in March, almost a dozen miners had died in a gas explosion in Balochistan.

Pakistani security forces on Thursday, meanwhile, rescued at least half of the 16 miners who had been kidnapped by militants in Balochistan.

The restive southeastern province is home to several separatist groups that accuse the federal government of unfairly exploiting local natural resources like oil and minerals, and routinely target resource extraction projects.

Australian woman who says she is the Philippine president’s half-sister appears in a Sydney court

An Australian woman who says she is the half-sister of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. appeared in a Sydney court on Friday on charges of causing a drunken disturbance on an airliner and pledged not to drink alcohol at airports or on planes while she is on bail.

Analisa Josefa Corr is accused of assaulting a fellow passenger outside a plane’s toilet after she and her husband, James Alexander Corr, allegedly consumed alcohol they had brought onto the flight and became intoxicated. After the plane landed in Sydney, they were taken to a nearby police station and charged.

Analisa Corr, 53, says she is the daughter of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. a dictator who was ousted in a 1986 pro-democracy uprising. He died in exile in Hawaii in 1989 at age 72. She also says she is the half-sister of the current president.

Marcos Jr. has previously dismissed reports of Corr’s relationship with his father as “rumors.”

Corr’s mother is Australian model Evelin Hegyesi, who reportedly began an affair with Marcos Sr. in the 1970s when she was 19 years old. He was married to Imelda Marcos, with whom he had three children.

Corr and her husband appeared Friday in Downing Center Local Court, where Deputy Chief Magistrate Michael Antrum agreed to return their passports on conditions including that they do not drink on aircraft or in Australian international or domestic airport departure halls.

They also agreed to deposit 20,000 Australian dollars ($12,400) each with the court, which will be forfeited if they breach the conditions.

Her lawyer, Jasmina Ceic, told the court her client needed her passport to travel overseas.

“She’s currently undertaking a project in Indonesia and intends to stay there … until the end of March,” Ceic said.

They are charged with failing to comply with cabin crew safety directions and with consuming alcohol not provided by flight attendants on a Jetstar domestic flight on Dec. 28 between Hobart and Sydney.

They pleaded not guilty to all charges during a court appearance on Monday. Their case will return to court on Feb. 24.

An online biography describes Analisa Corr as an interior designer, photographer and owner of a photography business based on the Gold Coast in Queensland state. Her middle name, Josefa, is the first name of Marcos Sr.’s mother.

Police clash with protesters in China after student falls to his death

The death of a 17-year-old student in north-west China has sparked mass protests over alleged government and police mishandling of the case.

Dang Changxin, from Pucheng in China’s Shaanxi province, reportedly fell to his death from his vocational school’s roof on 1 January. But public outrage has been fuelled by allegations of suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of the teen.

His family disputed the official explanation of suicide as people accused authorities of suppressing information.

Protests escalated into violent clashes with heavily armed police using tear gas and batons, marking one of China’s most significant public order challenges in recent months.

Pucheng authorities in a 5 Jan statement said a student surnamed Dang died at the campus of Pucheng County Vocational Education Center after falling from a building. The joint investigation team ruled out any crime, and informed the student’s family of their conclusion.

Reuters verified from several videos on social media platform X that the clash took place at the new campus of Pucheng County Vocational Education Center. The date of the incident could not be ascertained from the videos.

Online videos revealed heavily armed police dispersing crowds by using batons, kicking protesters, and deploying tear gas, BBC reported.

On 2 January, Dang’s parents were called to the school and told only that there was an urgent matter, according to Human Rights in China, a nongovernmental organisation founded in March 1989 by overseas Chinese students and scientists.

According to the group, upon arriving, his mother was not allowed to see her son. His classmates seemed flustered, avoided her questions, and quickly dispersed. She was then escorted to a room, where she was confined and denied any updates about her son’s condition, the organisation said in a statement.

The deputy director of the local police station reportedly told Dang’s mother that her son had died by suicide. The investigation was concluded and closed within 24 hours, the group said.

These claims, however, could not be verified by The Independent.

In the afternoon, after repeated requests, Dang’s mother was finally permitted to view her son’s body at the funeral home but prevented from checking the child’s corpse for any traumatic injuries, and were told the school’s surveillance system was damaged after demanding to see security footage, the group reported.

“These actions triggered public speculation that the school was trying to cover up the truth,” the group said.

Weinan’s public security bureau did not immediately respond to a request by Reuters to confirm whether the protest was related to the details mentioned by Human Rights In China.

Demonstrators gathered at the school, demanding accountability.

Lin Shengliang, founder of the Chinese Human Rights Accountability Database, which has been following the incident, told VOA: “The accidental nature is that they (the authorities and the school) did not expect that the public would not believe what they said, and that everyone bravely stood up. The inevitability is the inevitability of the public’s long-term dissatisfaction with society and distrust of the government.”

If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.

f you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.

Sydney synagogue targeted with antisemitic graffiti

Nazi swastikas were spray-painted on a synagogue in southern Sydney, sparking outrage from Australia’s Jewish community.

The Southern Sydney Synagogue in Allawah was daubed in anti-Jewish graffiti on Friday in an incident that political leaders labelled horrific and hate-filled.

New South Wales premier Chris Minns condemned the attack as hateful and divisive while prime minister Anthony Albanese urged for strict legal action, emphasising the importance of inclusivity in Australia’s multicultural society.

“It’s disgusting and disgraceful,” Mr Minns said.

He said there were people “out there that are determined to rip into our community and they should be ashamed of the actions that they’ve taken this morning”.

Mr Albanese said such crimes should be “called out for what they are”.

“They are hateful and have no place in Australia,” he said.

“Australians should respect each other and overwhelmingly do, regardless of their faith. We are a multicultural nation, we need to be inclusive and cohesive and that’s what my government is determined to support.”

In a separate incident on Monday, a car in Queens Park, home to some members of Sydney’s Jewish community, was defaced with antisemitic words.

David Ossip, head of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, said: “No Australian should have to wake up every morning filled with apprehension about whether or not there’s been another anti-Semitic hate crime overnight.”

In early December, antisemitic slogans were scrawled on buildings and footpaths in Woollahra and an advertising board in Sefton, a western Sydney suburb, was defaced.

Alex Ryvchin, co-chief of the executive council of Australian Jewry, wrote on X: “As long as these people evade justice for trying to terrorise Australian citizens, it will continue.”

“We’re also calling on our fellow Australians, particularly those in positions of influence across society, to end the silence and publicly denounce this behaviour as repugnant to our national values and a threat to us all.”