■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.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing