NEPAL
Students protest fuel hike
Students are burning tires to block traffic on key roads in Kathmandu and the eastern town of Itahari to protest a government decision to boost the prices of gasoline, diesel and cooking fuel. Police say there have been no reports of violence in the protests yesterday. The government decided on Wednesday to increase prices of various fuels by an average of 10 percent. State-run Nepal Oil Corp imports all oil products from India and says it had to increase the price because the cost of its supplies had increased and because it was facing losses.
CHINA
Guangdong official sacked
The government has dismissed a member of Guangdong Province Chinese Communist Party Standing Committee for “serious violation of rules,” according to the party’s news Web site, which cited an unidentified spokesman from the Organization Department of the party’s Central Committee. The official was the director of United Front Department of the local party committee, according to the report. It didn’t provide more detail about the allegations against him.
NORTH KOREA
Kim Jong-un visits military
New leader Kim Jong-un has visited an army unit, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said yesterday, as the new leader and head of the armed forces seeks to burnish his military credentials. Soldiers were “enthusiastically cheering in tears of emotion” as Kim toured a military base and took photos with troops, KCNA reported. It was the second reported visit by Kim, the youngest son of late leader Kim Jong-il, to a military unit this month and the latest attempt to help him tighten his grip on power. Kim Jong-un toured the base as his “father would do,” said KCNA, without disclosing the location or date of the visit. Army top brass, including Ri Yong-ho, the chief of the military’s general staff, accompanied him.
INDIA
Teacher a ‘billionaire’
A high-school teacher, with a monthly salary of around US$700, was astounded when a routine online check of his bank account showed a balance of almost US$10 billion. Parijat Saha, from the town of Balurghat in West Bengal State, said he had checked his State Bank of India account online last Sunday to confirm reception of a 10,000 rupee (US$200) interest payment. “Instead I saw this astronomical amount,” he said by telephone. The account showed a balance of 496 billion rupees. After recovering from the initial shock at becoming an overnight billionaire, Saha, 42, said he immediately called a friend he knew at the bank to point out what was obviously a major accounting error.
The State Bank of India said it was not immediately clear how the amount came to be registered in Saha’s account.
AFGHANISTAN
Aid sent to snowbound
Helicopters flew supplies into snowbound villages in the mountainous northeast yesterday as the death toll from heavy snowfalls and avalanches rose to at least 28, an official said. Dozens more people have been injured or are trapped in their homes under up to 3m of snow in Badakhshan Province, where main roads have been cut, making it difficult for rescue workers to reach affected villages. “The latest statistics we have are 28 people killed, 45 injured and 600 cattle killed from seven districts of Badakhshan,” said Abdul Maroof Rasikh, a spokesman for the provincial governor. “This is not the final toll, the fatalities may increase in the coming days.”
MEXICO
Teens detained for killings
Four teenagers have been detained for allegedly killing four students and a student’s father at a shady student organization in a western state last month, officials said on Wednesday. The bodies of a 56-year-old man, his 21-year-old son, two 17-year-olds and a 16-year-old were found buried in the grounds of the Federation of Students of Guadalajara in the middle of last month. The suspects, aged from 13 to 19, were still at school and worked at the student federation, a statement from the attorney general’s office of Jalisco state said. Investigators said last month that the victims went to complain about a rise in protection money for selling snacks outside the campus when a dispute broke out.
MEXICO
Seized kids were abused
An official says four of the 10 children seized as part of a child-trafficking probe involving Irish couples in Guadalajara were sexually abused. Jalisco state attorney general Tomas Coronado says a medical examination determined the abuse. He gave no other details. Coronado told reporters on Wednesday that 11 Irish couples are being questioned in the case. He said 15 Irish citizens have already spoken to investigators in Guadalajara. Authorities last week detained four women with children between two months and two years of age. A woman told police her sister-in-law was trying to sell one of her babies and “rent” the other one.
COLOMBIA
Police arrest trafficker
Police said on Wednesday that they had arrested Luis Fernando Otalvaro, known as “the Mathematician,” a suspected member of a major drug ring who has been sought by the US on trafficking charges. Officials said the 57-year-old Otalvaro, arrested at the Medellin airport, was part of a group known as “the board of directors of drug trafficking,” headed at one time by Luis Agustin Caicedo, known as “Don Lucho,” who is being held by the US. A police statement said Otalvaro was captured as he tried to board a commercial flight in Medellin for the southwestern city of Cali.
COLOMBIA
Oil pipeline blown up
Unknown attackers blew up a section of an oil pipeline near the Venezuelan border, the company Petronorte said on Wednesday. “We cannot say who did this, but we know it was an attack, an explosion” at the Rio Zulia-Ayacucho pipeline, Petronorte spokesman Renzo Coronado told RCN Radio. The spokesman did not indicate how much oil was spilled, but said efforts were underway to control the damage and prevent contamination of the Catatumbo River. The area has seen several attacks in recent days by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist group fighting the government for decades.
UNITED STATES
One in five disturbed
One in five adults, or nearly 50 million people, suffered mental illnesses in the past year, with women and young adults suffering disproportionately, a government report released yesterday found. The survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found women were more likely than men (23 percent to 16.8 percent) to have experienced a mental illness, while the rate of mental illness among people aged 18 to 25 was twice that of those aged 50 and older. The administration defined mental illness among adults as diagnosable mental, behavioral or emotional disorders, excluding developmental disorders and substance use.
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