CHINA
Bus crash kills 15 children
A bus taking elementary-school students home slipped off a country road into an irrigation ditch in Jiangsu Province, killing 15 children and highlighting continuing safety problems in the country’s school transport system following a similar tragedy last month. Workers at a nearby factory heard cries for help and rushed to the overturned bus, broke open the windows and began pulling children out. At least 15 children died and eight others were injured, one of them seriously, a spokesman for the Jiangsu provincial government said. Xinhua news agency said yesterday that the bus was carrying 29 students and was designed for 52 people, so it was not overloaded.
MALAYSIA
Sultan of swing now king
An 84-year-old sultan known as an avid fan of soccer and singers such as Frank Sinatra became Malaysia’s new king yesterday, the oldest constitutional monarch in the Southeast Asian nation’s history. Sultan Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah took his oath of office in a nationally televised ceremony attended by hundreds of dignitaries at a glittering yellow hall in Malaysia’s new federal palace. Under a unique system maintained since Malaysia’s independence from Britain in 1957, nine hereditary state rulers take turns as the country’s king for five-year terms. The monarch’s role is largely ceremonial, since administrative power is vested in the prime minister and parliament, but he is highly regarded as the supreme upholder of Malay tradition and the symbolic head of Islam.
MALAYSIA
Activists urge graft action
Environmental groups want the authorities to arrest a powerful state governor and 13 relatives accused of massive graft. Signatories including Greenpeace and the Swiss-based Bruno Manser Fund released a letter sent to the government that urges the immediate arrest of Abdul Taib Mahmud, chief minister of Sarawak State since 1981. Taib opponents have long alleged systematic corruption and plundering of the rich natural resources of Sarawak, located on the northern portion of Borneo, by Taib, 75, and his family. The letter alleged crimes including illegal appropriation of public funds and land, abuse of office, fraud, money-laundering “and conspiracy to form a criminal organization.”
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
PM’s election ruled invalid
The Supreme Court has ruled the election of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill was unconstitutional and restored his predecessor Sir Michael Somare as the South Pacific nation’s leader. The decision was handed down in a 3-2 ruling on Monday hours after O’Neill’s government passed a series of retrospective laws legalizing its decision to dump Somare from office while he was in Singapore recovering from a heart condition. The court found that there was no vacancy in the office of prime minister on Aug. 2 and that the vote of 70 to 24 lawmakers that elected O’Neill was illegal.
NEW ZEALAND
Shearer to head opposition
A political novice with a background as a UN aid worker in world trouble spots was yesterday elected leader of New Zealand’s main opposition Labour Party. David Shearer, 54, who entered parliament in a by-election just over two years ago, takes over from Phil Goff, who resigned the party leadership after a crushing defeat in a general election last month. Shearer turned to the political battleground after a career delivering humanitarian aid in areas including the Balkans, Somalia and Iraq.
FRANCE
Letter bomb defused
A package bomb sent to the Greek embassy in Paris was discovered by authorities and safely disabled on Monday, and caused no injuries or damage, an embassy official said. The package arrived with no external markings, prompting suspicious embassy staff to call the police, the official said. Police discovered a low-power explosive device inside, and detonated it under controlled conditions, the official said. The Greek Foreign Ministry later issued a statement saying the letter was appeared to have been sent from Italy.
GERMANY
MPs want EU deals say
Lawmakers from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition want more say in agreements made with EU partners, a paper to be presented to members of parliament says, firing a warning shot to Merkel that any deal to save the eurozone must go past them first. The paper, approved by parliamentary floor leaders from Merkel’s Christian Democrats, the Christian Social Union and Free Democrats, calls on the government to inform and consult parliament over international treaties. Parliament already holds greater sway in EU decisions since its Constitutional Court made it a requirement that the Bundestag be consulted on changes to the eurozone bailout fund.
PAKISTAN
Police rescue students
Police rescued 45 students found chained in the basement during a raid late on Monday on an Islamic seminary in Karachi. Officers also arrested two clerics at the Madrasah Zakarya, but the head of the seminary managed to escape, police official Mukhtiar Khaskheli said. “At least 18 of those chained are aged 20 while the rest are older,” he said. “The madrasah officials claim that they had chained those students because they were drug addicts and they wanted to rehabilitate them and make them better Muslims.”
BELGIUM
Jail terms for honor killing
A court on Monday sentenced four members of a Pakistani family to prison for the murder of 20-year-old Sadia Sheikh in the country’s first “honor killing” trial. The jury sentenced father Tarik Mahmood Sheikh to 25 years behind bars, mother Zahida Parveen Sariya to 20 years, brother Mudusar to 15 and sister Sariya to five years, media reported. Lawyers for the family said Mudusar, who confessed to pulling the trigger on the three bullets that killed his sister, was handed a lesser jail term than his parents because they were considered to have ordered the girl’s death. Sadia Sheikh, who defied the family by living with a Belgian man and refusing an arranged marriage, was shot dead on Oct. 22, 2007.
BELGIUM
Grenade attack kills two
A hand grenade attack in the eastern city of Liege reportedly left two people dead and 10 injured yesterday. Initial witness reports said at least one man threw up to four grenades outside the main courthouse around midday. RTL-TVI gunfire was heard and police were seen pursuing attackers.
PAKISTAN
Zardari had ‘mini-stroke’
President Asif Ali Zardari suffered a “mini-stroke” that led to his hospitalization in Dubai, a close associate said yesterday. Earlier, officials had said that Zardari’s trip was for routine medical tests. They then said he was having treatment related to a heart condition.
UNITED STATES
Chelsea Clinton on air
After a lifetime of guarding her privacy, Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former US president Bill Clinton and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, made her debut as a reporter on national TV on Monday with a feature about a non-profit organization dedicated to poor children in Arkansas. Clinton, 31, appeared poised as she reported the feel-good segment on Annette Dove, a volunteer who takes troubled youngsters in the poverty-struck city of Pine Bluff under her wing. “Hi Chelsea, we’re so glad to have you!” Dove exclaims on camera in the pre-recorded report, which aired on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams show. Saying that she “did deliberately lead a private life” until now, she explains she was “cajoled” by her recently deceased grandmother to become more public and said: “I hope I will make her proud.”
COLOMBIA
Drug trafficker extradited
Bogota has extradited to the US an alleged drug trafficker whose organization is accused of exporting more than 50 tonnes of cocaine a year to the US and Europe. Bogota and US authorities say Ramon Quintero was a top Norte del Valle-cartel trafficker who shipped drugs through Mexican cartels. Quintero was arrested in Ecuador last year and reporters watched him board a US Drug Enforcement Administration plane on Monday. He was indicted in Florida’s southern district in 2008. Washington had offered a reward of up to US$5 million for his capture.
UNITED STATES
Officials watch diplomat
Washington said on Monday it was looking into a “very disturbing” report that implicates a Venezuelan diplomat in an alleged Iranian plot to launch cyberattacks against nuclear plants. Livia Antonieta Acosta, currently Venezuela’s consul in Miami, Florida, is described in a report by New York-based Hispanic TV network Univision as an accomplice in the plot. Univision said that Acosta, during her service as second secretary at the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico in 2007, participated in the alleged plot to target sensitive national security facilities, including nuclear power plants.
CANADA
Citizens must show faces
New citizens must remove any face coverings, such as the Islamic niqab or burqa, while they take the oath of citizenship, the country’s immigration minister said on Monday. Jason Kenney said most citizens had misgivings about Islamic face coverings and said new citizens should take the oath in view of their fellow citizens. He said he has received complaints from lawmakers and citizenship judges who say it’s difficult to ensure that individuals whose faces are covered are actually reciting the oath. The minister called the issue a matter of deep principle that goes to the heart of national identity and the country’s values of openness and equality.
MEXICO
Students killed at protest
Two students were killed on Monday as police broke up a protest on the main highway between the capital and the Pacific resort city of Acapulco. A journalist witnessed police shooting in the air during a clash that lasted about half an hour near Chilpancingo, the Guerrero state capital, 270km south of Mexico City. The two bodies lay on the road afterward. There was no immediate official comment, but the head of the state human rights commission told a news conference he had opened an investigation.
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