PERU
Fujimori pardon considered
President-elect Ollanta Humala said he would pardon disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori if his health continued to deteriorate, in an interview with El Comercio daily on Sunday. “Yes, I would pardon him on humanitarian grounds,” Humala said. “Nobody should die in prison, except people serving life sentences for child molestation.” Humala’s comments came just days after he narrowly defeated Fujimori’s daughter, Keiko, in the presidential runoff. The elder Fujimori, 73, is serving a 25-year prison sentence for corruption and violating human rights.
MEXICO
Gunmen shoot family
Gunmen have killed five members of a family, including two young children, in the drug cartel-plagued northern state of Chihuahua. State Attorney’s General’s Office spokesman Carlos Gonzalez said the unidentified gunmen took the spent shell casings away with them after shooting the family in El Terrero in the municipality of Guadalupe y Calvo. Witnesses said five gunmen arrived at the house asking for a person. When the family said they didn’t know where he was, the assailants opened fire. Those killed on Saturday were two women, a teenager and two children aged three and four.
UNITED STATES
Man kills self, three women
The Durham County sheriff said a man killed three women and himself in a car near a North Carolina business park. Durham County Sheriff Worth Hill told the News & Observer of Raleigh on Sunday that investigators had a theory on what led to the shootings early on Saturday in the Research Triangle Park near Durham, but were not ready to release it. Details were scarce. The suspected gunman is 23-year-old Brinton Millsap. Investigators said all the women were shot several times. A motorist found the bodies on North Carolina Highway 54. Investigators said the three women were shot to death inside the car, while the man was found dead outside the vehicle.
MEXICO
Hundreds join ‘Slut Walk’
Hundreds of women dressed in teetering heels and schoolgirl miniskirts marched through Mexico City’s streets to demand an end to sexual attacks for the way they dress. The so-called “Slut Walk” to protest violence and harassment against women took place in several Latin American cities over the weekend, including in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, and Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Women and men marched along a main Mexico City boulevard with signs saying “No means No” and “prostitutes are sacred.” One self-described grandmother in a low-cut blouse advised women to dress as they pleased. “Slut marches” began in Toronto in April, after a policeman advised women to not dress “like sluts” to avoid victimization.
GERMANY
Zeppelin crash kills pilot
The pilot of a zeppelin was killed and three passengers had to leap to safety when the aircraft caught fire and crashed on Sunday evening, a police spokesman said. The accident happened at the Reichelsheim aerodrome, near Friedberg, as the aircraft was coming in to land. About 2m from the ground, the pilot told his three passengers — one from the Bild magazine and two from RTL TV — to jump to the ground while he tried to land safely, a report on the Bild Web site said. Once the three journalists left the zeppelin, it climbed back up to 40m, but then caught fire for reasons not yet clear, police said.
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