SOUTH KOREA
Marine kills three marines
A marine corporal went on shooting rampage yesterday, killing four fellow marines and wounding one on a Yellow Sea island base near the nation’s border with North Korea, officials said. The alleged shooter was taken into custody, but his motive remained unclear, defense ministry officials said. The officials, who declined to give their names because of official policy, said the corporal, surnamed Kim, was wounded, but it was unclear whether he tried to kill himself or was hurt when he was apprehended. One of the slain marines was an officer, while the other two were rank-and-file soldiers, the officials said. The shooting on Ganghwa Island, about 70km west of Seoul, was being investigated, the officials said.
AUSTRALIA
Pub sorry for evicting Sikh
A pub chain was seeking to apologize yesterday to a Sikh man who was evicted from a bar for wearing a turban. The man was wrongly evicted from a pub in Brisbane on Sunday because staff decided that his turban did not comply with its policy against patrons with headwear, Spirit Hotels said in a statement. “The patron should not have been asked to remove his turban, and we are attempting to contact the patron to apologize,” the statement said. Many of the country’s pubs ban headwear so that troublemakers can be readily identified from security camera footage. Sikhs’ turbans readily identify then as followers of their Indian religion. Wearing a turban is a tenet of the faith, along with unshorn hair and a beard.
CHINA
Tot survives 10-story fall
State media reported that a toddler was in critical condition after surviving a 10-story fall by being caught by a passing woman. Media reports said the two-year-old girl, Niu Niu, was left unattended on Saturday in the family’s 10th floor apartment outside Hangzhou, when her grandmother went on an errand. The reports said passer-by Wu Juping saw the toddler hanging from the window and then ran over when she saw Niu Niu fall. Sunday’s reports said 31-year-old Wu broke her left arm catching the child, who is hospitalized with internal bleeding and other injuries.
TURKMENISTAN
President sings on TV
President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov marked his birthday by singing on national TV a love song whose music and words he had penned himself. He serenaded viewers with the love song For You, My White Flowers on a special TV show late on Saturday celebrating his 54th birthday. Berdymukhamedov was shown in casual clothes, wearing gray slacks, a shirt and green pullover, singing the song and accompanying himself on guitar. The song was also shown on a giant screen to a concert attended by 3,500 people in Ashgabat, with the audience standing and applauding during the song. Berdymukhamedov is fond of showing off his skills away from politics. In April he staged an impressive display of his horsemanship on the back of a rare Akhal-Teke horse. Berdymukhamedov is seeking to very cautiously ease the country out of the isolation of his eccentric predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, who died in 2006. He has cut back on some of the excesses of Niyazov. However, observers have noted a budding cult of personality, with giant banners of Berdymukhamedov’s face hanging on government buildings, while critics said his stabs at reform were little more than window dressing.
UNITED STATES
Inmate protests porn ban
A Michigan jail inmate says he’s being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment because he cannot have pornography. In a handwritten lawsuit, 21-year-old Kyle Richards claims his civil rights are being violated at the Macomb County Jail. Richards says denying his request for erotic material subjects him to a “poor standard of living” and “sexual and sensory deprivation.” The Michigan Department of Corrections told the Detroit News that prisons allow some pornographic material, though it is banned at the jail. The American Civil Liberties Union says prisons have a lot of leeway.
UNITED STATES
Diplomat seeks asylum
The deputy chief of mission at Myanmar’s embassy in Washington is seeking political asylum, Radio Free Asia reported on Sunday. Career diplomat Kyaw Win, 59, had been posted in Washington since 2008 and defected because Myanmar’s leaders were unwilling to relax their grip on power, the news agency said. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said it does not comment on asylum cases. Win, who served in four other capitals during his 31 years as a diplomat, is the second deputy chief of mission from Myanmar to seek asylum in Washington.
UNITED STATES
Power lines started wildfire
Fire officials battling the Los Alamos wildfire said they have determined that a tree falling onto power lines sparked the blaze. The fire erupted on June 26 and has since scorched 490km2 northwest of Santa Fe. It is 19 percent contained. Until Sunday, officials had not released a cause of the fire, which initially caused alarm as it burned close to the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory. Los Alamos and nearby communities were evacuated nearly a week ago, but about 12,000 residents were allowed to go home on Sunday.
MEXICO
Cabanas’ widow killed
Authorities in the southern state of Guerrero say unidentified gunmen have killed the widow of legendary guerrilla leader Lucio Cabanas. A statement from the state’s Public Security Office said 54-year-old Isabel Anaya Nava was shot and killed along with her 58-year-old sister Reyna as they left a church in the community of Xaltianguis. Authorities said on Sunday the sisters had gone to the church to sell food when they were shot by assailants in a blue car. The motive for their killing was still not known and no arrests had been made. Xaltianguis is a community near Acapulco. Cabanas led the Mexican guerrilla group the Party of the Poor and died in a shoot-out with authorities in 1974.
UNITED KINGDOM
BBC seeks Twitter ban
A group of senior BBC executives are campaigning to introduce a BBC-wide ban on actors, writers and other talent involved in its productions using social networking sites to disclose details of their work. According to senior sources, the need for a ban “was a widely held view” and “conversations have started” regarding a change to contracts to forbid talent from using Twitter and other public internet forums to discuss details of their involvement in BBC productions if the information is confidential or sensitive. The campaign follows a spate of revelations on Twitter that, the executives claim, have disrupted press and marketing campaigns. They hope a ban will prevent storyline spoilers, casting news or press announcements from leaking out.
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