MYANMAR
Aung San Suu Kyi not voting
Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will not vote in upcoming by-elections despite running for a seat in parliament, an official with her party said on Monday. Even though Aung Sang Suu Kyi will be running for her National League for Democracy in the southern Yangon district of Kawhmu on April 1, she will not vote there because she does not live in the district, party spokesman Thein Oo said. Thein Oo said that to register to vote in Kawhmu, Aung Sang Suu Kyi would have to change her home’s registration from where she lives now in a central district of Yangon, which is a complicated procedure. As there is no by-election in Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s home district, she will not vote at all.
AFGHANISTAN
Karzai Twitter account fake
The presidency confirmed on Monday that a fake Twitter account had been set up in the name of President Hamid Karzai. The handle @PresHamidKarzai, which began tweeting on Monday with the announcement: “Welcome to my Official Twitter Account. Hamid Karzai,” was not authentic, deputy presidential spokesman Siamak Hirawai said. The account was not officially verified by the microblogging Web site and the second tweet raised further suspicions by describing Sunday’s killing spree of 16 civilians by a US soldier as “an act of war against our country.” “I deny such tweets are tweeted on behalf of the presidential palace of Afghanistan. The president does not have any account nor [does] he use Twitter,” Hirawai said.
AUSTRALIA
Gun ring broken up
A criminal syndicate smuggling black-market handguns into Sydney from Germany was smashed yesterday with three people arrested, police said. The arrests were made by officers from Strike Force Maxworthy, which was established last month to investigate the import racket with the help of the German Federal Police. “Today, a number of search warrants have been executed in Sydney, Australia, and Remscheid, Germany,” New South Wales state police said. “Three men have been arrested in Sydney and are assisting police with their inquiries.”
THAILAND
Deaths to be probed
Inquests will be held into the deaths of 16 people killed during a crackdown on Red Shirt anti-government protests two years ago, a prosecutor said yesterday. More than 90 people, mostly civilians, were killed and nearly 1,900 wounded during the 2010 rallies, which ended in a bloody military operation under then-prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who is now opposition leader. An initial hearing was held on Monday, but examination of 41 witnesses in the case will not begin until mid-June.
SOUTH KOREA
Legislators fight envoys
Lawmakers scuffled with North Korean delegates in Switzerland at a UN meeting on the North’s human rights abuses. Footage from Yonhap news agency shot on Monday showed several lawmakers trying to grab a North Korean diplomat leaving the UN meeting as they chanted slogans against China’s policy of repatriating North Korean defectors. The lawmakers were pushed away by security and North Korean delegates. The incident comes amid reports that China is returning dozens of North Koreans to their homeland instead of letting them defect to the South. Yonhap said the North’s diplomat left the conference after denying a UN human rights envoy’s criticism of his country.
CANADA
Cheney cancels trip
Former US vice president Dick Cheney canceled a speaking appearance because of security concerns sparked by demonstrations during a visit he made to Vancouver last fall. Cheney was scheduled to talk about his experiences in office and the current political situation in the US at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on April 24. However, Ryan Ruppert of Spectre Live Corp said on Monday that Cheney and his daughter Elizabeth had “decided it was better for their personal safety they stay out of Canada.” On Sept. 26 last year, Cheney was forced to stay holed up in the Vancouver Club for seven hours before it was deemed safe for him to leave. Demonstrators blocked the entrances and at one point scuffled with police.
IRAQ
Gold market robbed
Gunmen with rifles and hand grenades blasted their way into a row of Baghdad goldsmith shops on Monday, killing nine people and wounding 15, and escaping with gold and cash, police said. Police said the gunmen stormed the al-Aswad gold market in Baghdad’s northeastern Ur district. They killed two gold shop owners, two policemen, two soldiers and three passersby. Hospital sources confirmed the death toll. “Gunmen in two to three vehicles broke into the gold shops and started firing. Some gunmen were shooting at people standing outside to enable other gunmen to steal gold,” a policeman at the scene said by telephone.
BRAZIL
Condom record set
The government said it handed out nearly a half-billion free condoms last year — a record for the nation’s campaign to reduce AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. The Health Ministry said it distributed 493 million condoms last year. That is two-and-a-half condoms for every person in Latin America’s largest nation. They cost the government about US$19 million. The ministry said the government buys and distributes more condoms than any other nation. About 90 percent of all condoms used in Brazil are provided by the government.
UNITED STATES
Trafficker pleads guilty
The nephew of a powerful former Mexican drug cartel lord pleaded guilty on Monday to a drug trafficking conspiracy that stretched across the US. Rafael Cardenas Vela, 38, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and more than a half tonne of marijuana at a hearing before District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, Texas. Cardenas Vela is the nephew of Osiel Cardenas, the former leader of the brutal Gulf cartel, who was extradited from Mexico in 2007 and is now serving a 25-year sentence. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Cardenas Vela during an undercover operation outside a lavish ranch home where he was staying north of Brownsville in October last year.
UNITED STATES
Inmate sneaks out for sex
A male inmate in the maximum-security section of a Maine jail has breached security by sneaking into another wing for sex with a female inmate. The sheriff’s office says the 23-year-old man from Biddeford was caught crawling between cell blocks on Friday night as he was returning to his cell at the Cumberland County Jail. Officials say a video shows how he entered the women’s cell block, going through four doors to access the cell of a 25-year-old woman he apparently knew.
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