CHINA
Blast kills six at cafe
At least six people were killed and 38 injured when a powerful explosion hit an Internet cafe in Kaili City, Guizhou Province, on Saturday evening, reducing it to ruins, state media reported. The blast ripped through the cafe at about 11pm, state television said yesterday, citing local police. The broadcast showed rescue workers pulling victims from the devastated building and rushing the injured to hospital. The blast may have been triggered by “inflammable and explosive materials” kept in a nearby storage room, the report said. Police were still investigating the cause of the explosion, which also smashed windows in neighboring buildings.
THAILAND
King’s health raises concern
The country is marking the 83rd birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world’s longest reigning monarch, but elaborate celebrations fail to mask concern over his health and the future of the royal institution. Bhumibol delivered his annual birthday speech yesterday, sounding what has become his usual call for unity to keep the country happy and prosperous in the face of the sometimes violent political conflict it has faced in recent years. The king made his brief remarks at the ceremonial Grand Palace in a slow and rasping voice, reflecting his frailty. Thousands of flag-waving citizens cheered his car’s journey from Siriraj Hospital, to which he was admitted in September last year, with a lung inflammation. There has been no detailed explanation of his extended stay.
MALAYSIA
Police break up protest
Police fired tear gas and water yesterday at protesters at an opposition-backed rally in Kuala Lumpur. Xavier Jayakumar, a legislator in central Selangor State, said police fired tear gas and water canon at a crowd of thousands. He said at least five people were also arrested. Reporters at the scene, who declined to be named, said rounds of tear gas sent people running into side streets near the big National Mosque before they regrouped. The protesters, including several opposition parliamentarians, gathered to speak out against the federal government’s interference of water management in Selangor, Xavier said. Selangor is run by the national opposition People’s Alliance, of which Xavier is a member. Gatherings of five or more people need police permission and authorities often crack down on protests.
MALAYSIA
Man deported for ‘terror’ link
An Indonesian man linked to the extremist Jemaah Islamiyah outfit has been deported, the Jakarta Post reported yesterday. Fadli Sadama arrived at Jakarta airport on Saturday evening under heavy guard, the Post reported. Sadama was suspected of having links with a local “terror” network and the Pattani United Liberation Organization separatist group in South Thailand, National Anti-Terror Agency director Petrus Golose was quoted as saying. “Fadli planned to train ... before returning to Indonesia to plot acts of terrorism in Pekanbaru, Riau Province, and in the Mount Anak Krakatau area with foreign tourists as his main target,” Golose added. Reports have said that Sadama was arrested on Oct. 13 while traveling to Johor and was found to be carrying two guns. Sadama is believed to be linked to a group suspected of killing a police officer in a spectacular bank robbery in the capital of Indonesia’s North Sumatra, Medan, in August.
UNITED STATES
Santa helps out needy
“Secret Santas” are roaming the streets of North Carolina, handing out US$100 handshakes. The Charlotte Observer reported that the crew of donors, who insist on anonymity, handed out the US$100 bills on Friday to anyone who looked like they could use it. Felicia Adams was handed US$100 while working at a Goodwill outlet store. She said the money will help her get to New York to visit her father who is dying of cancer. The donors take thousands of dollars from their own bank accounts to hand out. It’s the fourth year the random acts of kindness have been done in Charlotte. This year, a half-dozen volunteers from the Charlotte police and fire departments tagged along, guiding the group through the city and pointing out people they could help.
ECUADOR
Volcano fear downgraded
Authorities downgraded a warning late on Saturday about a possible major eruption of the Tungurahua volcano. The alert was reduced from the maximum red to orange as activity eased, the national civil defense office said. The Geophysical Institute in Quito earlier reported a “very rapid and sustained increase in seismic activity and other manifestations at the surface” since early Saturday. A red alert was also in effect in Banos and other Andean villages near the 5,029m volcano, whose name means “throat of fire” in the local Quechua language. In 1999, the 15,000 inhabitants of the town were forcibly evacuated after a powerful eruption and not allowed to return for a year. Tungurahua’s biggest eruption, in August 2006, left six people dead and destroyed hundreds of homes.
HONDURAS
Canadians attacked
A Canadian man was killed and his 13-year-old daughter raped when their boat was attacked last week, police said on Saturday after they found the boat stranded in a lagoon near the northwestern port of Tela. The girl, Myda Egrmajer, was rescued by a passing oil tanker and taken to Puerto Cortes, a few kilometers to the east of Tela, criminal investigation chief Abelino Gomez told reporters. He said the body of Ottawa resident Milan Egrmajer, 55, was found in the lagoon where the attack took place late on Thursday. It had seven gunshot wounds. Father and daughter were sailing in their yacht from Guatemala to the island of Utila when they had to put in at a lagoon near Tela due to bad weather on Thursday. Before they could set sail again, they were chased by another boat boarded and attacked by several men, according to media reports. Alerted to the attack, authorities said bad weather prevented then reaching the stranded Canadians until Saturday.
GREECE
Suspected bombers nabbed
An official says counterterrorism police have raided a location outside Athens where they seized weapons and arrested several people. Local media reported that four people were taken into custody, but the police spokesman who confirmed the raid would not say how many arrests were made. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in compliance with police rules. Last month, a radical anarchist group called Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire, claimed responsibility for a spate of parcel bombings. Most of the 14 packages, all using tiny amounts of explosives, were intercepted by police and destroyed, though a delivery service employee suffered minor burns in a small blast.
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