■CHINA
SFDA chief sacked
A deputy chief of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) has been sacked and faces official investigation, Xinhua news agency said yesterday, flagging another possible corruption scandal for the watchdog agency. A brief Xinhua report revealed the dismissal and investigation of Zhang Jingli (張敬禮), deputy director of the SFDA, for “suspected disciplinary violations,” but did not elaborate. In past cases, such accusations and dismissals have often been a precursor to charges of embezzlement, bribe-taking or other economic crimes that led to prosecution and criminal convictions of errant officials.
■JAPAN
Moderate earthquake hits
A strong earthquake rattled the north yesterday, and authorities said no tsunami was expected in the area. There were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries. The Japan Meteorological Agency said the afternoon quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2. The earthquake occurred off the coast of the eastern Hama-dori region of Fukushima Prefecture, which is located about 240km north of Tokyo. The Tokyo Electric Power Co said its two nuclear power plants in the prefecture were operating normally.
■INDIA
Tensions flare over killing
Police stepped up security in the Kashmiri summer capital of Srinagar yesterday as tensions flared for the third day running over the death of a Muslim teenager. The 17-year-old was killed in downtown Srinagar on Friday during clashes between anti-India protesters and riot police and thousands of police and paramilitary sealed off neighborhoods to prevent further demonstrations. On Saturday, more than 60 police and protesters were hurt during day-long clashes across the city, despite security restrictions imposed by the authorities to block demonstrations. Residents in downtown Srinagar said vehicles mounted with loudspeakers had been announcing that a strict curfew was in force. Police denied imposing a curfew in some areas.
■THAILAND
Insurgents kill five
Suspected insurgents killed five people and wounded 24 in a bloody day of bombings and shootings in the south, police said yesterday. Militants threw two homemade grenades into busy eateries late on Saturday, killing a 35-year-old Buddhist man and injuring another 24. On the same day, four Muslim men were killed in shooting incidents across the southern provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani. More than 4,100 people — both Buddhists and Muslims — have died during a six-year anti-government insurgency across the south.
■AUSTRALIA
Coach resigns over comment
Former Australia scrumhalf Andrew Johns has stepped down as assistant coach of the New South Wales State of Origin rugby league team after admitting to making a racist comment about a Queensland player who is Aboriginal. New South Wales winger Timana Tahu, who has an Aboriginal mother and New Zealand Maori father, walked out of the New South Wales training camp after Johns’ comment about Queensland center Greg Inglis. Tahu said he was “hurt and devastated” by Johns’ comments and had left the New South Wales team to highlight the need for tolerance for all cultures. Johns later insisted he was not a racist and said he would personally apologize to Inglis and Tahu.
■SUDAN
Travel ban criticized
Khartoum must relax a near blanket ban on travel to remote parts of South Darfur to let aid groups reach areas hit by a resurgence of violence, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response Kristalina Georgieva said on Saturday. Aid groups said this week that security forces blocked flights and road trips in Darfur, stranding staff and stopping food deliveries. The Darfur region is seven years into a conflict that started in 2003 when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government in Khartoum, demanding more autonomy.
■ISRAEL
Arabs demand blockade lift
The Arab world’s top diplomat is touring Gaza to push for the lifting of a three-year-old blockade of the territory. Yesterday’s visit by Arab League chief Amr Moussa is the first by a senior Arab official since the Islamic militant Hamas movement seized the territory in 2007. He will meet with Gaza’s top Hamas official, in a boost for the widely shunned movement. The trip signals a shift in policy following Israel’s deadly raid of a blockade-busting flotilla two weeks ago. Many Arab countries held Hamas at arms length and Egypt has been Israel’s partner in keeping Gaza sealed. However, widespread outrage over the raid prompted Arab leaders to add their voices to growing international demands for the opening of Gaza’s borders.
■IRAN
IAEA relations downgraded
Parliament is drafting a bill on downgrading ties with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a lawmaker said yesterday after the Islamic republic was slapped with fresh sanctions over its nuclear drive. “The bill to revise Iran’s relations with the IAEA is being drafted,” Alaeddin Borujerdi who heads parliament’s commission on foreign policy and national security told state news agency IRNA. “It will not be discussed today in the majlis,” referring to earlier announcements that the bill was due to come up for debate in parliament yesterday. Borujerdi had announced that parliament would discuss the bill on downgrading ties with the IAEA soon after the UN Security Council on Wednesday imposed new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. He said yesterday there was no plan to downgrade ties with Russia and China even though the two powers voted for the sanctions resolution.
■RUSSIA
Insurgents strike in Dagestan
Two police officers were shot dead and another was wounded in an attack overnight in the republic of Dagestan, the local interior ministry said yesterday. Gunmen opened fire on a police post in the city of Derbent, a ministry official said. Police were searching for the attackers, he added. Dagestan has been the site of regular attacks against the security services in recent years. The local pro-Kremlin authorities in Dagestan, Ingushetia and other North Caucasus regions are battling to defeat an Islamist insurgency.
■YEMEN
Pirates attack tanker
Somali pirates opened fire on a Yemeni oil tanker in the Red Sea wounding a guard on board, the Interior Ministry quoted the coast guard as saying on Saturday on its Web site. It did not say when the attack took place. Heavily armed pirates using operate in the Gulf of Aden where they prey on ships, sometimes holding vessels for weeks before releasing them for ransoms paid by governments or shipowners.
■UNITED STATES
Calls for prisoner release
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Saturday that Iran should meet its international obligations and release all political prisoners, as well as three US hikers held for almost a year. On the anniversary of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election and the deadly unrest it triggered, Clinton said Iran continues to deny its citizens their fundamental, constitutional rights. Clinton called on Iran’s leadership “to meet their obligations to their own people and to the international community by respecting the rights and dignity of their citizens and by fully upholding Iran’s international obligations.” She also reaffirmed the US commitment “to engage with Iran on all issues in pursuit of a negotiated diplomatic resolution, on the basis of mutual respect and mutual interests ... but we also will continue to speak out in defense of basic human liberties and in support of those around the world who seek to exercise their universal rights.”
■MEXICO
Eco-activists protest naked
Environmental and animal rights activists on Saturday cycled through Mexico City naked — almost. Many covered up just a little with bunny tails, painted cow spots and other well-placed props. They wore signs saying, “Don’t eat me” and “I need my skin.” The protest was also intended to promote cycling in one of the world’s biggest, most polluted cities. Armando Monroa says he got naked to show aggressive Mexico City drivers “how fragile the human body is compared to a machine that weighs a ton.” Bicycling has become increasingly popular in the capital. The local government has promoted it by installing 1,100 rental bikes at 85 stations throughout the center of the city.
■BRAZIL
Opposition names candidate
The main opposition party has nominated former Sao Paulo governor Jose Serra as its candidate for October’s presidential vote. Polls show the 68-year-old economist about even with Dilma Rousseff, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s preferred successor. Serra tried on Saturday to distance himself from Lula on foreign policy. In a convention speech, he said it’s “not right to praise dictators ... just because they are potential allies.” That was an apparent reference to Lula’s close ties to democratically elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and overtures to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Serra did pledge, however, to maintain domestic social policies that have helped Lula’s approval ratings reach almost 90 percent nationwide.
■UNITED STATES
Oil spill near Great Salt Lake
An estimated 400 to 500 barrels of oil spewed into Red Butte Creek in Salt Lake City before crews capped the leak on Saturday, officials said. “Our real concern is keeping people safe, and keeping the oil from reaching the Great Salt Lake,” Salt Lake City Fire Department spokesman Scott Freitag told the Deseret News. Officials were unsure of the cause of the leak, near the University of Utah campus, or the spill’s environmental impact. Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker said drinking water for residents was not affected. About 150 birds have been identified for rehabilitation, said Jane Larson, Hogle Zoo’s animal care supervisor. The pipeline flows to Salt Lake City from Colorado and feeds the city’s oil and gas refineries. “Chevron is taking full responsibility for this pipeline leak,” Chevron spokesman Mark Sullivan told the Salt Lake Tribune.
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
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
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not