■JAPAN
Cherry blossom in bloom
It’s officially cherry blossom season again in Tokyo. The Japanese Meteorological Agency said yesterday that the country’s capital was officially in bloom, a closely watched announcement that marks the start of the yearly cherry blossom viewing season. The annual rite of spring goes back hundreds of years and involves sitting under sakura trees and taking in the fluffy pink flowers, which drop off about a week after they appear. In Tokyo, residents flock to parks to lay down tarps and claim the best spots, then host elaborate picnics and long drinking sessions. Japan designates certain trees for monitoring and considers a region to be in bloom when at least five or six flowers can be counted on the trees.
■SOUTH KOREA
Sex offenders deported
Seoul has revised its immigration rules to impose a lifetime ban on convicted foreign sex offenders and has already deported two people accordingly, a news report said on Sunday. The justice ministry revised the rules last month so as to deport foreigners who have committed sex offenses in the country or elsewhere, Yonhap news agency said, citing a ministry official. “A foreigner convicted of a sex offense here or in any other countries will immediately be deported and will never be allowed to come back to South Korea,” the official said, adding that two people had been deported as a result.
■BANGLADESH
Laborer killed, head burned
A laborer was murdered by brick-field workers who burned his head in a kiln in the belief this would redden their bricks, police said on Sunday. Four suspects were arrested for beheading the 26-year-old bricklayer in a remote town in the north on the instructions of the brick-field’s owners, local police chief Golam Sarwar Bhuiyan said. “They said the owners were unhappy as the brick-field was not producing reddish bricks despite enough heating. A fortune teller then suggested that the brick-field needed a human sacrifice,” he said. Police were searching for the owners and the fortune teller, he said.
■PAKISTAN
US drones kill four people
Suspected US drones fired missiles at a house and a car in a militant-dominated tribal region near the Afghan border, killing at least four people. The attack on Sunday occurred in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, two intelligence officials said. The identities of those killed were not known, though the region is dominated by the Taliban’s Haqqani network, which is blamed for launching attacks across the border against US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
■RUSSIA
Airplane crash lands
An airplane with nine crew on board made a crash landing not far from Moscow’s Domodedovo International Airport, news agencies reported yesterday, quoting airport officials. The Tu-204 aircraft, flying from Egypt, “had nine people on board, all crew members were alive, but two were hospitalized in serious condition,” Domodedovo’s spokeswoman Elena Galanova said as quoted by Interfax said. The emergency situations ministry said that four crew were injured. The airplane, which landed in a forest 1km away from the airport, caused no damage, they said.
■GERMANY
Poker heist suspect nabbed
Police say a fourth man accused of taking part in a brazen daylight raid on a poker tournament in Berlin has been arrested. Berlin police spokeswoman Claudia Schwaiger said on Sunday that the 19-year-old suspect was arrested at Tegel airport on Saturday night after his lawyer told police he was there. Authorities had been hunting for four suspects who they said were armed with a revolver and a machete when they stormed the tournament on March 6 at a downtown Berlin hotel and made off with 242,000 euros (US$$327,860) in jackpot money. Images of the masked men had been captured on surveillance cameras. Two other suspects were arrested last week.
■RUSSIA
Navy ship drifting at sea
The Interfax news agency said a surveillance ship was drifting in the Sea of Japan after taking on water. The agency cited an unnamed representative of the Pacific Fleet as saying the ship Pribaltika reported that water was coming into its engine room, forcing shutdown of the main engine. The report said the ship was being taken by currents toward the Japanese island of Tsushima. There are about 170 crew aboard the ship, the report said. A spokesman for the Russian navy, Captain Igor Dygalo, declined immediate comment.
■EGYPT
Israeli journalist released
An Israeli journalist detained by border guards a week ago has been released and repatriated, the Israeli embassy said yesterday. Yotam Feldman, 30, told police he had entered the neighboring portion of the Sinai peninsula legally to track African migrants seeking work or asylum in Israel when arrested. Israel’s Army Radio said Feldman flew to Tel Aviv at midnight and was met by Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai. Feldman’s father, civil liberties lawyer Avigdor Feldman, told the radio his son had been beaten by police. The Sinai border is a major transit route for African migrants and refugees seeking work or asylum in Israel.
■RUSSIA
Debtor shoots wife, kids
A distraught debtor shot and killed his wife and two daughters in a Moscow apartment to spare them the burden of his financial misery, the Interfax news agency reported, quoting a police source. The man, identified as Yuri Merkind, then boarded a train and headed more than an hour out of Moscow before surrendering himself and his pistol to police in Vladimir, about 190km east of the capital. Investigators found many receipts of debts owed in the apartment as well as a note apparently by Merkind on which he wrote: “We voluntarily left this life.” The bodies of Merkind’s wife and daughters, aged six and 16, were discovered on Saturday by his son, who was on home leave from the military, investigators said.
■UNITED STATES
War photographer dies
CNN photojournalist Margaret Moth, who survived a near-fatal gunshot wound to the face while filming in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the wars there in the early 1990s, has died. She was 59. CNN spokesman Nigel Pritchard confirmed that Moth died on Sunday in Minnesota, where she was in hospice care. A CNN obituary said she had suffered from colon cancer for three years. Moth was seriously wounded by sniper fire that hit a CNN van in July 1992 in Sarajevo. After several reconstructive surgeries, she returned to the war-torn country two years later, a documentary on her life said.
■MEXICO
Two students killed
Two men killed in a shootout between soldiers and gunmen near a prestigious university in the north were graduate students, not suspected drug traffickers, officials said. The victims were studying engineering at Monterrey Tech University, Nuevo Leon state Attorney General Alejandro Garza y Garza said. Army officials mistakenly told state prosecutors that two suspected gunmen died in Friday’s clash, Garza y Garza said late on Saturday. Monterrey Tech University rector Rafael Rangel said in a news release that both students had scholarships for academic excellence and had been at the college minutes before the shootout.
■CHILE
Aftershocks hit Concepcion
Two powerful aftershocks sent people scrambling out of their homes on Sunday in the coastal city of Concepcion, which took the brunt of last month’s massive earthquake, but no tsunami alert was needed, officials said. The magnitude 5.7 aftershocks were centered offshore, 56km west of Concepcion, at a depth of 35km, the navy’s oceanographic observatory said. The national emergency agency, meanwhile, said the aftershocks were below the tsunami-generating threshold, so no tsunami warning was issued.
■ARGENTINA
Residents torch city hall
Hundreds of angry residents in a town have torched the city hall to protest the death of two teenagers in a police chase. Television footage shows residents attacking the municipal headquarters in Baradero, 100km north of Buenos Aires. The 16 and 17-year-olds died on Sunday, apparently after police tried to stop them for riding a motorcycle without helmets. Police Major Aldo Carossi said witnesses told officers the youths tried to flee. A police truck and the motorcycle crashed during the ensuing pursuit, killing the teens.
■UNITED STATES
Tyson’s pigeons investigated
An animal welfare group wants New York City prosecutors to investigate Mike Tyson’s reality TV show about pigeon racing. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said the Brooklyn-based show was cruel to animals and its races could involve illegal gambling. The show will follow Tyson as he competes in pigeon races. The former world heavyweight champion has raised pigeons all his life, but is a racing rookie. The show is scheduled to air next year on Animal Planet. A spokeswoman said there had never been plans for wagering on the races. She said the pigeons would be “cherished and respected by their owners,” including Tyson. PETA sent a letter last Tuesday to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office requesting an investigation. District attorney spokesman Jonah Bruno said the office was looking into the allegations.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was