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.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion