Australia's Government has formally approved a plan to dredge vast swathes of seabed sediment from an area near the Great Barrier Reef as part of a major coal port expansion. Environment Minister Greg Hunt initially approved the expansion of the Abbot Point coal port in northern Queensland in 2013, but the process has been repeatedly delayed amid protests by conservation groups. They argue the expansion will hurt the reef's fragile ecosystem. The expansion requires a massive dredging operation to make way for ships entering and exiting the port, which is located around 20km from the nearest coral reef. The original plan called for more than 3 million cu m of dredged seabed mud to be dumped on the reef.
An officially sponsored trip to India by actor Orlando Bloom to encourage tourism was stalled when he was denied entry at New Delhi airport. Bloom had been invited to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra by the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state. He was told to get on a flight back to London, three hours after arriving because his e-visa had not been cleared. Officials refused to provide Bloom with a 72-hour temporary permit. While the Lord of the Rings star waited on his return at Heathrow, the Indian Foreign Minister, Sushma Swaraj, got the Indian High Commission in London to open its visa section to give him the document. Bloom finally went to Agra on a 45-minute tour.
Europe
French police have detained and then released a retired police officer over the discovery of a fake bomb on board an Air France plane which made an emergency landing in Kenya. Border police took the 58-year-old man - a passenger on the flight - into custody on his return to France, while his wife was also being questioned as a witness, a day after their flight from Mauritius to Paris was diverted to Mombasa. A passenger alerted crew members to the device found inside a toilet cubicle on board the Boeing 777, which was carrying 459 passengers and 14 crew. The object, made up of cardboard, paper and a kitchen timer, was found to pose no danger to the aircraft or its passengers, Air France said.
The Daily Telegraph has been fined up to £30,000 after sending thousands of people an email urging them to vote Conservative on the day of British election. The letter making the plea was attached to the paper's regular news summary on May 7. Sent from editor Chris Evans, it described the poll as the "most important since 1979", adding: "The Daily Telegraph urges its readers to vote Conservative". The Information Commissioner's Office found that subscribers to the e-bulletin had not specifically consented to receive such marketing, as required under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations.
Middle East
Amid shouts of "death to Israel," thousands of Hizbollah supporters thronged the coffin of a high-profile Lebanese militant who the group says was killed by an Israeli airstrike near the Syrian capital. The group's leader pledged to strike back at the Jewish state, but refrained from making any fiery threats during a speech addressing the assassination. Hizbollah said Samir Kantar, who spent 30 years in an Israeli prison after being convicted of the 1979 murders of an Israeli policeman and a father and his 4-year-old daughter, was killed with eight others in the airstrike on a residential building in Jaramana. Hizbollah officials had pledged to avenge his killing. Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the group will exact revenge but did not make any specific threats.
Africa
Scientists involved in Oxford University's lion research unit are expecting to see grandcubs from Cecil the lion in March. Cecil was killed by American dentist Walter Palmer in July, but the lion's son Xanda is expected to become a father in the Hwange national park in Zimbabwe. The university's lion research unit has received US$1.2 million in public donations. A US agency has listed two lion subspecies under the Endangered Species Act, offering them legal protection that will make it harder for hunters to import trophies into the country. The US Fish and Wildlife Service listed lions found mostly in West and Central Africa as "endangered" and lions in eastern and southern Africa as "threatened" and said it would withhold permits from violators. The measures, enacted under the world's most powerful animal protection law, will take effect in January 2016. They follow the extension of protection to African elephants and cheetahs.
A group of Muslims travelling on a bus in the north east of Kenya took a brave stand against gun-wielding Islamists, refusing to point out who on their bus were Christian, despite the terrorists threatening to kill them all. The Somali gunmen sprayed the bus in Mandera with bullets, killing two people. Ten al-Shabaab militants then boarded the bus and ordered the Muslim passengers to split away from the Christians. But a passenger said he and fellow Muslims defied demands from the attackers to help identify Christians travelling with them. "We even gave some non-Muslims our religious attire to wear in the bus so that they would not be identified easily. We stuck together tightly," said Abdi Mohamud Abdi. "The militants threatened to shoot us but we still refused and protected our brothers and sisters. Finally they gave up and left but warned that they would be back." Julius Otieno, the deputy county commissioner, confirmed the account.
It's a bit odd
Lithuanian police say they stopped a vehicle driven by a 10-year-old boy who had been told to take the wheel by his heavily intoxicated mother. Border police said they noticed a slow moving minivan on a country road near the southern town of Kybartai and found a boy driving it. The boy's 43-year-old mother, in the backseat, was measured at more than four times the legal driving limit. The woman faces a fine of €115 for allowing a minor to drive a motor vehicle. World Health Organisation statistics show that Lithuania's road safety record is among the worst in the European Union, with 15 fatal accidents per 100,000 vehicles in 2014.
CCTV video has caught a moment at a Morocco market in Inezgane where a woman in robes knocked a man unconscious with a single punch to the back of the head after he pinched her bottom.
Darth Vader is a tattooed 43-year-old former Marine who owns a gym and is raising funds online for a bone marrow transplant. The Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester reports that a western New York man legally changed his name last year to match the villain in the Star Wars films. The former Eric Welch, of Canandaigua, says he grew up in foster homes and didn't have strong family ties to his name. The Star Wars fan says he chose Darth Vader for his new name because the character carries an aura of leadership and toughness.
Imagine that
A study says no water has been found in valleys carved into numerous Mars slopes. French scientists wrote in Nature Geoscience that these gullies were likely created by dry ice defrosting. "The role of liquid water in gully formation should ... be reconsidered," Francois Forget and Cedric Pilorget of the French national research institute CNRS wrote.
