■NEPAL
Police detain 562 protesters
Police detained 562 Tibetan women at an anti-China rally in Kathmandu yesterday, the first all-women protest against Chinese rule in their homeland, officials said. Some shouted “we want free Tibet,” while others wept as they were dragged along the road to police vans and trucks and driven to detention centers. Many were wearing black armbands and had their mouths gagged with cloths. Nepal considers Tibet part of China, a key donor and trade partner, and has been cracking down on protests by exiled Tibetans against Beijing. Police said the protesters would be freed later. Exiled Tibetans have been protesting regularly ever since deadly riots broke out in the Tibetan capital Lhasa in March. “We are not against Nepal. Our protests are against China. So why are they arresting us?” asked a 70-year-old protester.
■JAPAN
PM to set emissions targets
Japan aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by between 60 percent and 80 percent by 2050, news reports said yesterday, as part of measures setting out the country’s long term environmental goals. Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is expected to announce the target as early as next month, the Nikkei Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun said. For the year to March, Japan’s total volume of greenhouse gas emissions was estimated at 1,341 million tonnes, up 6.4 percent from the 1990 level, used as the base year for the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Tokyo is still discussing details of the plan ahead of Japan hosting the G8 summit in July, the Asahi said. Officials want to make the goal not legally binding, but they hope the announcement will encourage technological and business innovations in the environmental field, the newspaper said.
■UNITED STATES
Pelican injures swimmer
A swimmer is recovering after a pelican apparently diving for fish slammed into her face off Florida. Debbie Shoemaker was in the water on Thursday near St Petersburg when the pelican’s beak opened a gash in her face. She needed 20 stitches. The bird died. The chief of the St Petersburg Fire Department says he never heard of a diving pelican colliding with anyone. An expert surmises the bird was diving for fish and hit Shoemaker by accident. The 50-year-old woman returned home on Friday.
■BRAZIL
Prison inmates escape
Twenty-nine inmates broke out of a prison in the southeastern part of the coutry in an escape that local media blamed on a security breakdown after a contract with guards expired. Police said on Saturday that the prisoners had escaped the previous night from the Novo Horizonte lockup near Vitoria, the capital of Espirito Santo State. Globo TV network reported on its Web site that inmates cut wire fences inside the yard and then broke through a wall. Four were recaptured on Saturday, Globo said. A woman who answered the phone at the Espirito Santo state police department confirmed that 29 inmates broke out Friday, but she declined to provide further details or give her name.
■UNITED STATES
Five corpses found
The bodies of five people, including three young children, were found on Saturday afternoon on a sprawling property with several structures in Houston, Texas, police said. A neighbor made the grisly discovery after seeing a man’s body on porch next to a .22-caliber rifle, police Lieutenant Dan Harris said. The bodies of a woman and a boy were found in a shack on the property, Harris said. The bodies of a boy and girl were found in another shack. The children were believed to be between ages four and nine. Investigators declined to speculate on the causes of death, although they said there were no obvious signs of a struggle. They also declined to release identities of the victims or say whether they were related.
■VENEZUELA
Chavez backs Beijing
President Hugo Chavez condemned pro-Tibet protests and backed China ahead of the Olympics in Beijing. The socialist president accused the US government of trying to “sabotage” the August Olympic Games and of aiding protests focused on Tibet. Chavez said he would back China against what he sees as a “secessionist” attempt in Tibet. The US considers Tibet a part of China and says it is concerned about violence in Tibet, but will refrain from meddling in China’s internal affairs. Chavez spoke on Friday night after meeting Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu (回良玉). Venezuelan and Chinese officials also signed cooperative accords.
■UNITED STATES
Six die in car collision
An official in the Erie County Coroner’s office said six people died in a two-car accident in Pennsylvania, near the border with Ohio. Chief deputy coroner Korac Timon said that four men and two women died on Saturday when the minivan they were traveling in crossed the median and hit a car head-on at about 4pm. The van came to rest on its roof. Timon said a seventh person in the van and the woman driving the other car were taken to a hospital. Both are expected to survive. Officials did not release names of those involved in the accident.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia