PHILIPPINES
Rebels try to end land feud
The nation’s largest Muslim rebel group says it has ordered one of its commanders to halt attacks against a rival guerrilla to try to end a land feud that has killed at least 14 combatants. Moro Islamic Liberation Front spokesman Von al-Haq said yesterday that commander Adzme Kasim has been ordered to halt attacks and take a defensive posture to ease a week of sporadic clashes in Datu Piang sparked by a land feud with a rival leader from a breakaway rebel group. Regional military spokesman Colonel Prudencio Asto says the clashes have killed at least 14 combatants and forced more than 3,000 villagers to flee from the fighting, which erupted a week ago.
PAKISTAN
Militants kill three soldiers
Intelligence officials say suspected militants have fired rockets at a paramilitary base in the northwest during an independence day ceremony, killing three soldiers and wounding 23. The officials say the soldiers had just finished raising the flag and were gathering for speeches yesterday when the rockets hit the base in Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal area. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
TURKEY
PKK kills three soldiers
Kurdish guerrillas ambushed a military convoy in the east of the country late on Saturday, killing three soldiers, security sources said. They said the clash took place in the southeastern province of Sirnak when soldiers patrolling a road were attacked by guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). In June, jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan sent word through his lawyers that he had agreed with government officials to set up a “peace council” aimed at ending a 27-year conflict in which 40,000 people have died. Militant activity in the southeast continues, however.
UNITED KINGDOM
Northern Irish Catholics riot
Police in Northern Ireland came under attack on Saturday from Irish Catholic rioters in Londonderry, but reported no serious injuries. Several hours of violence followed a parade through the medieval walled center of Londonderry by about 12,000 members of the Apprentice Boys of Derry, a British Protestant brotherhood. Hours before the march, Irish republicans hurled dozens of Molotov cocktails at the Apprentice Boys’ headquarters, causing light damage to the building. Groups that support Irish Republican Army splinter groups scuffled with police on the fringe of the parade, then ratcheted up violence once the march was over. Police said three vehicles were hijacked and torched. Catholic gangs hurled dozens of Molotov cocktails and a crude homemade grenade at police lines, injuring nobody.
PHILIPPINES
Rebels attack town hall
About 50 suspected communist rebels disguised as soldiers have attacked a town hall compound in the center of the country, but were repulsed by police. Three policemen were wounded in the clash. Regional police commander Cecilio Calleja says the New People’s Army rebels attempted to enter a police station early yesterday in the government compound in Mobo in Masbate province. Calleja says the policemen sensed it was an attack and opened fire, sparking a gunbattle. The Maoist guerrillas withdrew toward a forested mountain after an hour. Government negotiator Alex Padilla, who heads talks with the rebels, renewed a call for a ceasefire.
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