JAPAN
Akihito to have surgery
A television report said Emperor Akihito will have heart bypass surgery. Public broadcaster NHK said the 78-year-old Akihito will have the surgery on Saturday. The Imperial Household Agency says the emperor returned yesterday from the hospital, where he received tests, but did not elaborate. The agency official in charge of commenting to the media was not immediately available. Akihito was admitted to University of Tokyo Hospital for tests on Saturday. He has had various health problems in recent years, including pneumonia and prostate cancer. He has cut back on public duties, but appears relatively healthy.
BANGLADESH
Journalists stabbed to death
Two prominent television journalists were brutally stabbed to death on Saturday at their home in Dhaka, police said. The motive for the slaying of the husband and wife who worked for private television was unknown, police said. They were killed early on Saturday at their apartment, while their six-year-old son was in another room, police said. The boy was unharmed. Police identified the slain couple as Meherun Runi and Sagar Sarwar. Runi, 33, worked as a reporter for the country’s largest private television station ATN Bangla. Sarwar, 35, was a news editor for Maasranga TV. “The couple was stabbed to death sometime after Friday midnight,” deputy police chief Imam Hossain said, adding the husband’s hands and legs had been tied. “We are still clueless about who committed the crime. We have launched a probe. Their bodies bore multiple stab wounds. It was a brutal killing.” The murders came to light when the couple’s son called his grandmother and said that his parents were lying on the floor. It was not known whether the killings were related to their work. No valuables were missing from the house.
SOUTH KOREA
Children die of neglect
Three children were found dead on Saturday after their faith-healing father, a Christian pastor, attempted to treat their illnesses only with prayers, police said. The bodies of the children, aged 10, eight and five, were found by their relatives at their home next to the pastor’s church in the southern county of Boseong, a detective at Boseong Police Station said. “They were apparently suffering from infections that went untreated for a long time as the father was only praying for them, instead of seeking medical treatment,” he said. The 43-year-old pastor’s fourth child, a year-old baby, was taken into protective custody by police, the detective said, adding that the father was being questioned.
INDIA
Amitabh has operation
Veteran Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan was “hale and hearty” after undergoing a three-hour operation on Saturday for an abdominal ailment, a hospital official said. Bachchan, 69, has a history of abdominal problems — the legacy of an accident suffered while filming three decades ago. “The operation lasted three hours. Bachchan is hale and hearty now,” a spokesman for the Seven Hills Hospital in Mumbai said. Bachchan was admitted to hospital on Saturday morning after complaining of abdominal pain earlier last week, sparking worries about his health among thousands of his adoring fans. “The Big B,” as he is known, has suffered abdominal problems since he ruptured his spleen during a fight scene on the set of the 1982 film Coolie, after which he was critically ill for months.
UNITED STATES
Man tried in diving death
A man who served prison time in Australia for the death of his bride during their honeymoon is going on trial today in Birmingham, Alabama, accused of murdering her during a scuba dive. Gabe Watson, 34, is accused of killing Tina Thomas Watson. She drowned during the dive in Australia just days after their wedding in October 2003. Watson already has served 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter for not doing enough to save his wife’s life. Alabama prosecutors say Watson planned the honeymoon diving trip so he could kill Tina for insurance money. The defense says her death was a horrible accident.
MEXICO
Mob kills alleged kidnappers
An angry mob of villagers in Mateo Huitzilzingo on Friday attacked and killed three men they accused of trying to kidnap a local resident. So far, 23 people have been arrested for the mob attack, prosecutors said. A spokesman for the Mexico State Security Secretariat said the mob numbered “more than 500 people.” An initial investigation showed “a group of six women incited local residents to attack three men, who they set on fire,” a statement from the Attorney General’s Office said. Police tried to rescue the three men, but succeeded in pulling only one of them away from the mob. He died on Saturday morning at a hospital.
PAKISTAN
Afghans accused of killing
A tribal policeman has accused Afghan forces of crossing into the southwest of the country and snatching three men allegedly providing safe haven to militants fighting in Afghanistan. Police officer Mohammed Azim said 13 Afghan security personnel drove nearly3km into Baluchistan Province on Saturday and took the men from Thurkha village. He said yesterday that officials have received unconfirmed reports that two of the men have been killed.
IRAN
Millions lose e-mail service
A news agency reported on Saturday that more than 30 million people in the country have lost access to foreign e-mail services, such as Gmail, Yahoo mail and Hotmail. The report by the semi-official Mehr agency said that the authorities in the national telecommunications company declined to comment on the outage that began on Thursday, saying that it had no connection to them. The country has occasionally restricted the Internet since the turmoil that followed the 2009 elections.
EGYPT
South Koreans released
Three South Korean women being held in the Sinai Peninsula by Bedouin tribesmen were released on Saturday together with their translator following negotiations with the authorities, the governor of South Sinai Province said. The Bedouin had snatched the three from a tour bus traveling near the St Catherine monastery in central Sinai toward Sharm el-Sheikh and had sought to use them to bargain for the release of jailed members of their tribe. “The three Koreans and the Egyptian were released,” South Sinai Governor Khaled Fouda said. Their abduction was reported on Friday. Fouda did not say if the tribesmen’s demands had been met. Bedouin tribesmen in the Sinai have attacked police stations and blocked access to towns to show their discontent with what they see as poor treatment from Cairo, and to press for the release of jailed kinsmen. Earlier this month, two US women were held until authorities negotiated their release a few hours later.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing