VIETNAM
US naval exchange starts
The nation is hosting a week-long naval exchange with the US Navy this week. Three ships from the US 7th Fleet began their five-day visit to Danang yesterday. No live-fire drills are planned, but the two sides are expected to practice salvage and disaster training as they have done in recent years.
HONG KONG
Victoria Beckham under fire
Former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham flew into controversy yesterday after she posed for a picture in a crew-only seat on a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong. “Cabin crew prepare for landing! Welcome to Beijing!! X vb,” she wrote on Twitter alongside a photograph of her sitting in the crew seats aboard the Beijing-bound flight on Friday. Wearing sunglasses and a peach-colored dress, she appears to be making an announcement on the public address system while a stewardess sitting next to her pulls a funny face. An airline spokeswoman said the stunt was harmless but “inappropriate.” The photograph was not taken at any critical stage of the flight, such as take-off or landing, she added. The Hong Kong Standard newspaper reported that Beckham had been criticized on Internet forums for putting the flight’s safety at risk.
NEPAL
Rights groups protest plan
Leading rights groups yesterday urged the government to drop plans for a blanket amnesty over thousands of killings and other atrocities committed during the country’s 10-year civil war. More than 16,000 people died in the conflict between Maoist rebels and the state, which ended in 2006, and more than 1,000 are still missing. The parliament is setting up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate wartime killings, torture and forced disappearances and is debating proposals to grant an amnesty for abuses by government and rebel forces. Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) released a joint statement calling on political leaders to fulfill a commitment made in the post-war peace agreement to prosecute violations of international law. “Amnesty for gross human rights abuses — such as torture, including rape and enforced disappearance — would violate international law,” said Frederick Rawski, of the Geneva-based ICJ. “Amnesty for these crimes would also contradict well-established Nepal Supreme Court jurisprudence and the government’s own public commitments at the UN Human Rights Council.”
JAPAN
Crash kills two pedestrians
A seven-year-old girl and a pregnant woman were killed yesterday when a car hit a group of elementary-school children near Kyoto. Five children were seriously hurt when the car, driven by an 18-year-old without a license, crashed into the nine youngsters and one adult. Yukihi Matsumura, 26, who was seven months pregnant, and seven-year-old Mao Odani, were declared dead several hours after the crash, which happened at around 8am as the youngsters were being taken to school. Matsumura’s fetus also died in the accident in Kameoka City near Kyoto, a police spokesman said. Officers arrested the teenage driver, who had been up all night with two friends, police said, with local media reporting he might have fallen asleep behind the wheel. “He has said he was playing around all night,” a police spokesman said, while declining to spell out whether alcohol or drugs were a factor.
UNITED STATES
Zimmerman out on bail
George Zimmerman, charged with second-degree murder in the killing of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, left a Florida jail early yesterday after posting bail of US$150,000 in the racially charged case, a spokeswoman for the sheriff in Seminole County, Florida, said. Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch volunteer, was released from the county’s John E. Polk Correctional Facility shortly after midnight after posting bail and meeting other conditions set for his release at a pretrial detention hearing on Friday. Under the conditions set by Judge Kenneth Lester Jr, Zimmerman must wear an electronic monitoring device, although he might be allowed to leave the state. He must also observe a dusk-to-dawn curfew and is prohibited from consuming illegal drugs or alcohol or possessing a firearm. No date has been set for Zimmerman’s trial, but due to safety concerns, his whereabouts are expected to remain a closely guarded secret until his next appearance in court. Zimmerman shot and killed Martin in Sanford in central Florida on Feb. 26 in an incident that triggered civil rights protests nationwide. Police initially declined to arrest Zimmerman.
NIGERIA
Blast kills five sect suspects
The military says five suspected members of a radical Islamist sect were killed in an explosion that struck a small town in the country’s restive northeast. Colonel Victor Ebhaleme said on Sunday the blast struck the town of Biu in Borno State, where the sect known as Boko Haram has carried out a series of attacks in recent months. Ebhaleme said investigators arrived in Biu after the explosion on Saturday and found the remains of five people they believe belong to Boko Haram. He said two others were arrested in the operation. Boko Haram is waging an increasingly bloody fight against the weak central government in its effort to enact strict Shariah law across the multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people and free its imprisoned members.
CZECH REPUBLIC
Coalition set to disband
Prime Minister Petr Necas has said the leaders of the three parties that form his government have agreed to end their coalition. Necas said the coalition’s existence would be terminated on Friday, but it did not mean the government had collapsed, since a new party might be formed that would replace Public Affairs, a junior coalition partner. Sunday’s announcement came after Vit Barta, an informal chairman of the centrist Public Affairs, was convicted of paying bribes. Barta announced he would quit politics, but refused to resign his parliamentary seat, angering Necas. A number of prominent members and lawmakers of Public Affairs walked out earlier this week and are forming a new group that might replace the party in the government.
UNITED STATES
Gibb still in intensive care
Bee Gees star Robin Gibb has colorectal cancer and remains in intensive care after waking from a coma, his doctor said on Sunday. Andrew Thillainayagam said Gibb was being treated for advanced colorectal cancer and had caught pneumonia as he was weakened from grueling doses of chemotherapy and two operations. The 62-year-old singer fell into a coma last week after contracting the pneumonia. Thillainayagam said that three days ago, he had told Gibb’s family that he might not wake up. Instead, Gibb is now fully conscious and able to speak. Thillainayagam said Gibb was still in intensive care and was “exhausted, extremely weak and malnourished.”
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