05/04/2026

theSun on Sunday APR 5, 2026

WORLD 7

Two arrested in Australia fugitive investigation MELBOURNE: Australian police said two people were arrested yesterday as part of an investigation into how a fugitive evaded capture for seven months after he had killed two police officers. Desmond Freeman was shot and killed by police at a remote property in northern Victoria state on Monday, ending a manhunt which began in August last year when the 56-year-old fled into dense bushland.

Following the shooting of Freeman, Victoria police chief commissioner Mike Bush described the manhunt as one of the “most significantly resourced police operations” in Australian history. – AFP

separate properties in northeast Victoria and would be interviewed. “The investigation remains ongoing and as such, we are not in a position to provide further details,” a police statement said.

Police resources were poured into the search for Freeman after he shot and killed two officers who had come to search his rural home in Victoria. Police said a man and woman were arrested yesterday at two

Astronauts to orbit Moon

Quake claims eight in Afghan family KABUL: An earthquake that struck Afghanistan on Friday night killed eight members of the same family in Kabul province, the Health Ministry said yesterday. The 5.8-magnitude quake struck at 8.42pm on Friday (12.12am yesterday in Malaysia) at a depth of 186km at the epicentre in northeastern Badakhshan province, according to the US Geological Survey. “In the Gosfand Dara area of Kabul Province, eight members of a family died as a result of the earthquake,” Health Ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman said in a message to media. He said a child aged two was the only survivor from the household and the country’s disaster management agency said the boy had been injured in the tremor. Afghanistan is frequently jolted by earthquakes, particularly along the Hindu Kush mountain range near where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates meet. In August, a shallow magnitude 6 earthquake wiped out mountainside villages and killed more than 2,200 people in eastern Afghanistan, making it the deadliest tremor in the country’s recent history. – AFP 2,800 displaced in Central Java JAKARTA: A total of 2,839 people have been displaced by flooding in Demak Regency, Central Java Province, following days of heavy rainfall and the overflow of the Tuntang River. Head of the Data, Information and Disaster Communication Centre at Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency Abdul Muhari said as of 9am yesterday, floodwaters had inundated several low-lying areas and triggered embankment breaches, forcing residents to evacuate. He said the situation worsened after embankments collapsed in the Guntur subdistrict, particularly in Trimulyo and Sidoharjo villages, causing water to flood residential areas and farmland. Flooding has affected eight villages across four subdistricts – Guntur, Karangtengah, Wonosalam and Kebonagung – he said in a statement. According to him, floodwaters in some areas, especially in Trimulyo and Ploso villages, reached depths of up to 150cm, cutting off road access for smaller vehicles and disrupting daily activities. Abdul Muhari said authorities in Demak Regency have set up evacuation centres at mosques, government offices and other community facilities. – Bernama

Feat last done more than 50 years ago

month and is already drawing many visitors. Borneo orangutans enter breeding age between 12 and 15. “She is smart, gentle and loves to eat, especially oranges from Ehime Prefecture,” said her keeper, Eriko Inoue. “We hope this matchmaking is successful,” she said, adding that she hopes visitors will learn about the situation facing wild orangutans through Jennifer. – Bernama Hawkins the photographs taken by mission commander Wiseman, calling them “amazing” during a briefing on Friday. “We continue to learn all about our spacecraft as we operate it in deep space with crew for the first time,” Hawkins said. “It’s important to remind ourselves of that as we learn a little bit more day by day.” Friday’s to-do list includes a CPR demonstration and medical kit checks, the US space agency said, as well as preparation for the scientific observations they would need to document when they are closest to the Moon on day six of their journey. Nasa officials reported on Friday that all systems were performing well, and that the astronauts were in “great spirits” and had spoken to their families. The next major milestone of the 10-day journey is expected on Sunday night, at which point the astronauts will enter the “lunar sphere of influence” – when the Moon’s gravity will have stronger pull on the spacecraft than Earth’s. If all proceeds smoothly, as Orion whips around the Moon the astronauts could set a record by venturing farther from Earth than any human before. “There is nothing normal about this,” said Wiseman on Thursday. “Sending four humans 250,000 miles away (402,336km) is a Herculean effort, and we are now just realising the gravity of that.” The Artemis 2 mission is part of a plan to repeatedly return to the Moon, with the goal of establishing a lunar base that will offer a platform for further exploration. – AFP praised

continued perform equipment checks and tests. “There has been a tremendous amount of disbelief for me, it’s just so extraordinary,” said Canadian Jeremy Hansen during a Q&A session with the press on Thursday. “I really like it up here. The views are extraordinary,” said Hansen, who is on his first ever journey to space. “It’s really fun to be floating around in zero gravity. It just makes me feel like a little kid,” he added. Hansen is on the crew with Americans Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman. They are due to loop around the Moon early next week – a feat not accomplished in more than 50 years. Nasa official Lakiesha to

the docking hatch right now, it is a beautiful sight,” Koch said at about 11pm on Friday (noon in Malaysia yesterday), according to the space agency’s official live broadcast. Nasa’s online dashboard showed early yesterday that the spacecraft carrying the astronauts was more than 229,000km from Earth. The space agency earlier released images from Orion that included a full portrait of Earth, featuring its deep blue oceans and billowing clouds. After a flurry of high-stakes activity, including a dramatic blast-off and an engine firing that catapulted them on their historic trajectory to circle the Moon, the four astronauts aboard were able to catch their breath, even as they

HOUSTON: 2 astronauts passed the halfway point between Earth and the Moon yesterday as they sped toward a planned lunar flyby, with Nasa releasing initial images of Earth taken from inside the Orion spacecraft. Astronaut Christina Koch said the crew had a collective “expression of joy” upon being told of the milestone, which was hit around two days, five hours and 24 minutes after the spacecraft blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “We can see the Moon out of Artemis

(From left) Hansen, Wiseman, Koch and Glover heading to orbit the Moon. – AFPPIC

Zoos team up to breed endangered orangutan MATSUYAMA: A zoo in western Japan aims to breed as the species is limited in Japan and listed as critically

Indonesia signed a wildlife conservation agreement in 2024, followed by a breeding loan agreement between the two zoos last April. Tobe Zoo welcomed a female Bornean orangutan named Jennifer in December, bringing the total number of orangutans at the zoo to three, including a Sumatran orangutan. The 15-year-old female has been on public display since last

endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List. A turning point came in 2018, when Taman Safari Indonesia proposed launching a joint orangutan conservation project with the prefecture-run zoo, a facility that had previously succeeded in breeding Sumatran orangutans. Ehime Prefecture and

endangered orangutans by pairing a male at the zoo with a female from an Indonesian zoo under a rare wildlife conservation agreement, Kyodo News reported. Hayato, a 15-year-old male Bornean orangutan at Tobe Zoological Park of Ehime Prefecture, has reached breeding age, but the zoo has struggled to find him a partner