Sydney beaches reopen days after hundreds of tar balls wash ashore

Beaches in Sydney reopened after being closed earlier this week when hundreds of mysterious golf ball-sized black lumps washed ashore.

These dark spheres, which were first spotted on Coogee Beach on Tuesday, were confirmed to be “tar balls” but it was unclear where they originated from.

Penny Sharp, the environment minister of New South Wales, said investigations were continuing to find what was behind the formation of these tar balls.

Waverley Council closed Bondi, Bronte, and Tamarama beaches as a precaution on Thursday evening, while Randwick Council closed four additional beaches, including Clovelly, Maroubra, Gordons Bay, and Coogee.

New South Wales Maritime executive director Mark Hutchings said in a statement the balls were “not extremely toxic” to humans.

“We can now confirm the balls are made up of fatty acids, chemicals consistent with those found in cleaning and cosmetic products, mixed with some fuel oil.

“We’ve found no further evidence of the substance, so this appears to be an isolated incident.

“We’ve had teams on the ground, vessels out on the water, and drones in the sky to clear the majority of the balls from our beaches.”

Around 2,000 balls were picked up since Tuesday, according to The Guardian.

Even though only 150 balls were found on Friday, according to ABC News, beachgoers have still been told to inform lifeguards if they spot any more tar balls and to clean their hands with soap and water or baby oil if they come into contact with them.

On Wednesday evening, Randwick council said preliminary lab test results suggested that the dark spheres were made of tar which could be formed when oil comes into contact with debris and water as a result of oil spills or seepage.

It said the “preliminary test results … show the material is a hydrocarbon-based pollutant which is consistent with the makeup of tar balls”. Hydrocarbons are primarily found in natural sources like petroleum, natural gas, and coal.

The NSW Maritime and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said earlier this week they were investigating the potential origins of the tar balls.

“[The Australian Maritime Safety Authority] will do reverse modelling and drift modelling, take into account the currents and the wind, for [NSW Maritime] to be able to work out whether it’s come from the south, north or east off the coast of New South Wales,” director Darren Wood told ABC Radio Sydney.

Man arrested in Japan after ruling party headquarters firebombed

A man was arrested after he was accused of throwing several firebombs into the headquarters of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Tokyo on Saturday. There were no reports of injuries.

Tokyo police declined to comment, stating that the matter was still under investigation. The man had also driven his car into nearby security fencing outside prime minister Shigeru Ishiba’s office, which is close to the LDP headquarters situated in Nagatacho, news reports said.

The police have named the suspect as Atsunobu Usuda, 49, of Saitama Prefecture near Tokyo, and he was arrested on the scene for obstruction of official duties.

His motive for the attack was not immediately clear.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party has become increasingly unpopular with the public due to a ballooning money scandal involving dubious funding and suspected tax evasion.

The party declined to comment on Saturday’s attack, referring all queries to the police.

Local media quoted Ishiba, who was in Kagoshima in southern Japan on Saturday, as saying democracy should never give in to violence.

Voting for the lower house of Parliament is set for 27 October. Some politicians have lost the official backing of the ruling party but are running as independents.

The party recently chose a new leader, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, hoping to present a new image. But polls show its popularity plummeting, although it’s still unclear whether they will lose their majority grip on the lower house in the upcoming election given the splintered opposition.

Mr Ishiba, a moderate and former defence minister, won the ruling LDP presidential election at his fifth and final attempt last week, defeating economic security minister Sanae Takaichi in a runoff vote.

Some candidates have been heckled, which is relatively rare in Japanese culture.

The Liberal Democrats have ruled Japan almost incessantly over recent decades. They are credited with leading Japan as it became an economic powerhouse from the devastation of World War II.

Then-prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated in 2022, while making a speech for a ruling party candidate during a parliamentary election. The killer used a handmade firearm, saying he resented Abe because his mother gave all the family money to the Unification Church, and he saw Abe as affiliated with that church. Such ties are still ongoing with some ruling party politicians.

Additional reporting by Reuters.

Schoolboy who attacked sleeping students with claw hammer jailed

A public schoolboy who attacked two students and a teacher with claw hammers while they slept at a boarding school in Devon has been jailed for life with a minimum of 12 years.

The 16-year-old had claimed he was sleepwalking and was “on a mission” to protect himself from a zombie apocalypse when he carried out his attack.

Jurors at Exeter Crown Court found him guilty of attempted murder after he admitted to assaulting the two boys and the housemaster at Blundell’s School in Tiverton.

The court heard that the teenager, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had waited for the two boys to be asleep in their cabin-style beds before attacking them shortly before 1am on 9 June last year.

Housemaster Henry Roffe-Silvester was awoken by the noises coming from the boarding house and went to investigate, at which point he saw a silhouetted figure standing in the bedroom.

The schoolboy turned towards him and repeatedly struck him over the head with a hammer, before he managed to flee and dial 999, believing there was an intruder.

The two victims were discovered a few minutes later, with skull fractures, as well as injuries to their ribs, spleen, a punctured lung and internal bleeding.

Neither of them have any recollection of the incident and are now living with the “long-term consequences” of the attack, while Mr Roffe-Silvester suffered six blows to the head.

During the trial, James Dawes KC, prosecuting, told jurors: “The investigation has uncovered an obsession that the defendant had with one of the boys, an obsession with hammers as weapons, and an obsession with killing and killers and the killing of children.

“He had motive, that he had planned something like this, thought about it in advance, and he was awake.

“He was using his iPad right up to the moment before the attack.”

The teenager maintained he was sleepwalking at the time of the attacks – meaning he would be not guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity.

Relatives of the defendant also told the court about a history of sleepwalking in their family.

Giving evidence, the boy told jurors he remembered going to sleep before the attack and then seeing the dormitory covered in blood.

“I knew something really bad had gone on and everyone was looking towards me,” he said.

“I didn’t remember doing anything so the only rational thing I was thinking was that I was sleepwalking.”

He said he kept two hammers by his bed “for protection” from the “zombie apocalypse”.

The court also heard that the boy was being blackmailed by an online user, which was “on his mind every second”.

Passing sentence, Mrs Justice Cutts said the defendant was “dangerous” and only a life sentence could protect the public from further offending, as experts were unable to say how long he would pose a risk.

“It nevertheless remains the case you knew the difference between right and wrong and planned to kill the boys and obtained hammers,” she said.

“You planned your offences and used hammers you had bought as weapons. You knew full well if you hit the boys multiple times with the hammers they would die.

“You are an intelligent boy, and I am satisfied you knew the difference between right and wrong.

“I accept that in prison things will be difficult for you. In my view, there remains a significant risk that you could behave in this way again.

King Charles sends message to Australia as monarch arrives for visit

King Charles has been appointed to multiple honorary ranks in Australia’s armed forces within hours of arriving for his first visit as King.

He has been appointed as Australia’s admiral of the navy, field marshal of the army and marshal of the air force, the defence chief said on Sunday.

The 75-year-old arrived in Sydney on Friday evening in his first major foreign trip since being diagnosed with cancer.

With no official events scheduled for Saturday, Charles and Queen Camilla were seen by local media walking around the historic harbour foreshore residence Admiralty House, Reuters reported.

In a statement, chief of the Defence Force Admiral David Johnston said: “The Sovereign serves as an example of service, and His Majesty’s appointments are symbolic of the Royal Family’s longstanding dedication and relationship with the nation.”

Camilla and Charles will participate in a navy fleet review on Sydney Harbour next week. Australia’s navy has been known as the Royal Australian Navy since 1911, with its vessels carrying the title of His Majesty’s Australian Ship.

It is the first trip to Australia by a reigning monarch in more than a decade.

Afghan journalists fear country going dark with latest Taliban move

The Taliban’s ban on images and videos of “living things” will make it harder to cover Afghanistan, journalists in the country said.

The Afghan ministry for vice and virtue has directed media platforms in Maidan Wardak, Kandahar and Takhar provinces to not show images of “living things with a soul”, taken as meaning people and animals.

A ministry spokesperson, Saif ul Islam Khyber, confirmed to the Associated Press that Taliban-run media stopped showing images of living things in some provinces on Tuesday to comply with the new law.

The ban, part of a set of “morality laws” published by the ministry in August, does not extend to visuals of the Taliban’s more prominent leaders.

In effect, this means journalists can no longer take pictures or videos of people and animals. Photojournalists in particular fear that the restrictions will harm their livelihoods.

“What is allowed? Photos of buildings, banners, and empty spaces. Landscapes and mountains are also allowed for now,” an Afghan photojournalist told The Independent, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisal from the Taliban.

“It is a worsening situation for me and other photojournalists. This puts an end to our work of taking photos. If I don’t take pictures, then I don’t get paid. I get paid for the photographs I send to news agencies.”

The photojournalist, who freelances for an international news agency in southern Afghanistan, fears the prohibition, issued in keeping with the Taliban’s interpretation of Shariah law, is another weapon in their arsenal to harass media workers.

Afghanistan is the only country to impose such a prohibition, an eerie reminder of the Taliban’s previous rule in the late 1990s.

“Government officials harass photographers and bar us from taking pictures every time we are at a venue. We are also not openly accepted at media briefings and press events. Local Taliban leaders also stop us from taking pictures of women even if they are wearing hijab or burqa. The ban will pick up pace slowly in the coming days. I can only hope that foreign nations will step in and bring us out of Afghanistan,” he said.

A photojournalist who covered Afghanistan until the Taliban took Kabul by force and overthrew the Ashraf Ghani government in 2021 claims that the edict marks the beginning of the end for the outside world to witness atrocities and human rights violations in Afghanistan.

“Make no mistake, this is one of the last times the international community can have free access to photos and videos coming out of Afghanistan, some highlighting grave human right abuses,” Massoud Hossaini, a Pulitzer-winning Afghan-born photojournalist, said. “It will now come at the cost of the safety of media workers.”

Mr Hossaini, who worked for French news agency AFP, claims to have received death threats for doing his job even under the previous Western-backed government.

“You are taking pictures of women and men and everybody who does not want to be in the picture, and taking pictures is haram,” he says he was told by local Afghan leaders.

“We are warning you, if you do not stop this we will punish you in the Islamic way. They meant death, not just flogging or prison.”

China launches survey to find out why people ‘fear having children’

China is conducting a survey to understand the public’s “fear around having children” as it grapples with a birthrate that continues to decline despite repeated efforts to encourage people to have more babies.

The study the root causes behind this flagging birthrate will cover 30,000 respondents across 1,500 communities in 150 counties, according to the China Population and Development Research Centre of the National Health Commission.

China’s birthrate has been declining since the late 1980s after it introduced a strict one child policy to control the rapidly growing population. Total population fell for the second straight year in 2023.

It was still the world’s most populous country until India took the lead in April 2023.

The survey aims to analyse people’s “reluctance and fear around having children” and provide data for public agencies to enhance fertility support policies, Global Times reported on Thursday.

This is the first such exercise since the countrywide family and fertility survey in 2021.

It comes after the National Bureau of Statistics said it will conduct a nationwide sample survey from 10 October to 30 November to monitor population changes.

Chinese health officials said in September they would focus on advocating marriage and childbirth at “appropriate ages” and called for shared parenting responsibilities to guide young people towards “positive perspectives on marriage, childbirth and family”.

To arrest the decline in population, China scrapped the one child policy in 2015 and laid out financial incentives, such as tax breaks, for couples to have at least two children. In October 2022, president Xi Jinping declared that boosting the birthrate was a national priority.

Mr Xi told the Communist Party National Congress, held every five years, that his government would “pursue a proactive national strategy” in response to the country’s ageing population.

Any measures taken so far don’t appear to have had a sustained impact, however, with people citing the rising cost of living as one of the reasons for delaying having children or dismissing the idea entirely.

Chinese policymakers are reviewing plans to delay the retirement age for state employees with urgency growing over a shrinking workforce. The National People’s Congress in September discussed a draft law to “gradually raise the statutory retirement age”.

North Korea’s special forces ‘in Russia ready to join war in Ukraine’

South Korea’s spy agency has warned that North Korea has sent a battalion of troops to bolster Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said in a statement that Russian navy ships had transferred 1,500 North Korean special operation forces to the Russian port city of Vladivostok earlier this month.

It said they are currently staying at military bases in Vladivostok and other locations in Russia including Ussuriysk, Khabarovsk and Blagoveshchensk, and that they will probably be deployed to battlegrounds after completing their adaptation training.

The NIS posted on its website satellite and other photos showing what it called Russian navy ship movements near a North Korean port, along with suspected North Korean mass gatherings in Ussuriysk and Khabarovsk, in the past week. It said more North Korean troops are expected to be sent to Russia soon.

The NIS also said it had been working with the Ukrainian intelligence service, and that it had used facial recognition artificial intelligence technology to identify North Korean officers in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region supporting Russian forces firing North Korean missiles.

North Korea has shipped more than 13,000 containers filled with artillery rounds, ballistic missiles and anti-tank rockets to Russia since August last year, the agency said, based on the remnants of weapons recovered from the front line in Ukraine. In all, more than 8 million artillery and rocket rounds have been shipped to Russia, it said.

“The direct military cooperation between Russia and North Korea that has been reported by foreign media has now been officially confirmed,” the spy agency said in a statement.

Earlier on Friday, South Korean media, citing the NIS, reported that North Korea had decided to dispatch a total of 12,000 troops formed into four brigades to Russia. North Korea has 1.2 million troops, one of the largest militaries in the world, but they lack actual combat experience.

The deployment of troops to Russia, if confirmed, would be Pyongyang’s first major involvement in a war since the 1950 to 1953 Korean war. North Korea reportedly sent a much smaller contingent to the Vietnam war and another to the civil war in Syria. Military experts have expressed doubt over just how much the troops will help, given their lack of battlefield knowledge and Pyongyang’s outdated, mostly Soviet-era, equipment.

South Korea’s presidential office said in a statement that the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, had presided over an emergency meeting earlier on Friday to discuss North Korea’s troop dispatch to Russia. The statement said participants at the meeting had agreed that North Korea’s troop dispatch poses a grave security threat to South Korea and the international community.

The announcement follows rumblings of the development from Ukrainian military intelligence sources and a declaration by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday that 10,000 troops from North Korea were heading to Ukraine.

Despite Russian denials, Mr Zelensky said the development could be “the first step to a world war”. Presenting his “victory plan” to Ukraine’s parliament earlier this week, Mr Zelensky said the two countries, Russia and North Korea, now amounted to a “coalition of criminals”.

Ukrainian media reported earlier this month that six North Koreans were among those killed by a Ukrainian missile strike in the partially occupied eastern Donetsk region on 3 October.

Speaking to reporters in Brussels before a meeting with Nato defence ministers, the Ukrainian leader said: “From our intelligence, we’ve got information that North Korea sent tactical personnel and officers to Ukraine. They are preparing on their land 10,000 soldiers, but they didn’t move them already to Ukraine or to Russia.”

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said on Friday that members of the Western alliance “have no evidence that North Korean soldiers are involved in the fight. But we do know that North Korea is supporting Russia in many ways – weapons supplies, technological supplies, innovation, to support them in the war effort. And that is highly worrying.” Western nations including the US and the UK are closely monitoring developments.

President Yoon’s office said South Korea, together with its allies, had been closely tracking North Korea’s troop dispatch to Russia from the initial stages. South Korea will respond to the North’s activities with all available means, it added, without elaborating on what actions it might take.

According to the NIS, North Korean soldiers sent to Russia have been provided with Russian military uniforms, weapons, and false identification. After training, they are expected to be deployed from the military bases where they are currently stationed to combat zones.

“They are known as the Buryat Battalion,” a senior Ukrainian military official told Politico. Buryatia is a region in the Russian far east, near the Mongolian border.

In June, Mr Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty that commits both countries to providing military assistance to each other if either is attacked, which followed a leaders’ summit in the Russian far east last year.

US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said earlier this week that the deployment of troops would mark a “significant increase” in the closeness of their relationship, but that it also indicates a “new level of desperation by Russia” amid heavy losses on the battlefield during the invasion, which is into its third year.

Sir Keir Starmer reiterated this in a press conference in Berlin on Friday, saying: “If it’s true, then to my mind it shows a level of desperation in relation to Russia.”

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

South Africa asks Taiwan to move office out of country’s capital

South Africa has told Taiwan to move its de facto embassy out of the country’s capital, in the latest indication of China’s growing influence in the Global South.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry said it had been ordered to relocate the embassy from Pretoria to Johannesburg by the end of the month.

South Africa and China strengthened relations when president Xi Jinping travelled to the African nation for the BRICS summit last August. Then when South African president Cyril Ramaphosa visited Beijing this year for the Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, he reiterated his country’s adherence to the One China principle.

The principle, a cornerstone of Beijing’s diplomatic relations, affirms that there is only one sovereign country named China and that Taiwan is a part of it. Any country that accepts the principle cannot have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

Four months after Mr Xi’s visit, South Africa first asked Taiwan to move out its embassy, a Taiwanese official told Bloomberg. They claimed Chinese diplomats had been pressuring South Africa to get Taipei to move the embassy.

Taiwan’s foreign minister Lim Chia-lung was working on countermeasures for South Africa’s representative office in Taipei, CNA news agency reported. He could ask South Africa to relocate their office from Taipei and even impose stricter visa rules for South African travellers and suspend bilateral educational exchanges.

Taipei could instead give priority to the Kingdom of Eswatini, its only diplomatic ally in Africa, for the hiring of teachers.

Taiwan has accused Beijing of using its growing economic heft to poach away its diplomatic allies, pressuring nations to sever or downgrade relations with Taipei in favour of China, which regards the island as its sovereign territory.

Taipei sees such moves as part of an aggressive strategy by China to undermine the island’s sovereignty and further diminish its presence on the global stage.

Taiwan has just 12 formal diplomatic allies after the Pacific island of Nauru recognised China earlier this year. Taipei has lost 10 diplomatic allies during the last eight years.

South Africa severed formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1998.

In 2017, Nigeria instructed Taiwan to relocate its mission out of the capital, cut its staff and remove “Republic of China” from its name, allegedly under pressure from Beijing. China subsequently hailed Nigeria for supporting the One China principle.

Taiwan responded by forcing Nigeria to move its representative office outside Taipei and summoned the African country’s acting trade director twice to express its concern that the move harmed Taiwan’s interests.

In a diplomatic boost, Taiwan opened its third office in India this week, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in Mumbai. China lodged a diplomatic protest with India in response saying it “strongly opposes all forms of official contact and interaction between Taiwan and India”.