JAPAN
US fighter jet crashes
A US F-16 fighter jet crashed into the Pacific Ocean off the north coast yesterday and efforts were underway to rescue the pilot, a spokeswoman for the Misawa Air Base said. The jet took off from the US air base in Aomori and crashed at about 11:30am about 382km northeast of Hokkaido, the spokeswoman said. “The aircraft was enroute to North America when the incident occurred. The cause of the incident is unknown at this time,” she added.
MALYASIA
Embassy in Syria closing
The government says it is shutting its embassy in the troubled nation and evacuating more than 130 students and diplomats because of the escalating civil war. Foreign Minister Anifah Aman says the Malaysian ambassador to Damascus and four other embassy officials will be temporarily withdrawn after 128 students are brought home. Officials are urging other Malaysians in the Middle Eastern country to leave immediately. A ministry statement late on Saturday said 10 Malaysians are registered with the embassy.
THAILAND
Myanmar’s president visits
Burmese President Thein Sen has begun a twice-postponed visit to Bangkok. He arrived yesterday for his first trip since he became president in March last year tomorrow and began a series of economic and political reforms. His trip is expected to focus on economic issues.
PAKISTAN
Airstrikes kill 15 militants
Military jets struck militant hideouts in the northwest of the country yesterday, killing 15 militants and wounding several others, military officials said. The airstrikes targeted four hideouts in the remote Ghaljo and Dabori areas of the northwestern Orakzai tribal region, the officials said. The locations were being used by members of the Pakistan Taliban. The death toll could not be independently verified.
PHILIPPINES
15 relatives killed in crash
A truck transporting relatives to a wake crashed into a roadside ditch in Biliran province, killing 15 people, police and officials said yesterday. The truck was speeding downhill in a remote village on Saturday evening when the accident took place, provincial police spokesman Chief Inspector Wilfredo Gervacio said. He said 13 of the victims were crushed and killed instantly, while two others died while in hospital. There were 28 people in the truck, with the survivors suffering various injuries. “We are a small community here and people know each other, so we are very saddened by this accident,” Biliran Governor Gerry Espina told local radio.
AFGHANISTAN
Three NATO soldiers killed
Three NATO soldiers were killed in separate attacks in the east of the country over the weekend, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. Two were killed in a roadside bomb explosion early yesterday and another was killed in an insurgent attack on Saturday, ISAF said, without giving further details or naming the nationalities of the dead. The latest deaths take the total toll among the US-led coalition so far this year to 250, according to an AFP count based on figures provided through the Web site icasualties.org.
EGYPT
Suleiman funeral held
Thousands of well-wishers and military brass gathered on Saturday for the funeral of the country’s former vice president and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, a key figure in the fallen Mubarak regime who died last week in hospital in the US. Supporters of Suleiman chanted: “God is great” and “in the name of God” as his casket was hoisted atop a horse-drawn cart after a ceremony at the al-Rashdan Mosque in Cairo’s Heliopolis district. Some yelled out slogans against the Muslim Brotherhood, the party of newly elected President Mohammed Mursi, which intelligence services fought for years to contain. Mursi, who spent about six months in prison during Suleiman’s tenure as intelligence chief, did not attend the funeral, but sent a top aide. Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of the ruling military council, attended the funeral. Suleiman died on Thursday due to complications from amyloidosis, a disease that affects multiple organs, including the heart and kidneys, three days after he had checked in for treatment, a statement by the Cleveland Clinic said.
EGYPT
Attackers blow up pipeline
Attackers yesterday blew up a gas pipeline in Sinai used to export fuel to Israel and Jordan, the 15th such attack since last year, the official MENA news agency reported. Witnesses said they heard a loud explosion and saw flames from the site of the explosion near the northern Sinai town of El-Arish. Bedouin militants are believed to be behind the spate of pipeline attacks that have occurred since a popular uprising overthrew former president Hosni Mubarak in February last year. The country has been gripped by security problems since the revolt, and the Sinai Peninsula is particularly sensitive because of tensions with its heavily armed Bedouin community. Cairo froze supplies to Israel earlier this year to negotiate a new price. Several Mubarak-era ministers and businesspeople have been imprisoned for selling the gas to Israel at below market rates.
SOUTH SUDAN
Sudan accused of bombing
The government accused Sudan on Saturday of bombing one of its villages just two weeks before a UN-imposed deadline on peace and oil negotiations between the two nations. Military spokesman Colonel Philip Aguer said Sudanese Antonov planes bombed the village of Rumaker in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state near the two countries’ border early on Friday morning. Aguer said two civilians were slightly injured. Sudan, however, promptly rejected the accusation, saying its aircraft only attacked the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement within its own borders.
RWANDA
US cuts military aid
The US government says it has cut this year’s planned military assistance to the country amid concerns that the government in Kigali is supporting rebel movements in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The US State Department said in a statement on Saturday that “the United States has been actively engaged at the highest levels to urge Rwanda to halt and prevent the provision of such support, which threatens to undermine stability in the region.” The US — usually a staunch ally — therefore said it would not pay US$200,000 of initially pledged military aid. The government has denied reports by the UN and rights groups that it is supporting the so-called M23 rebel movement in eastern DRC, which has sparked new fighting in recent months that has forced more than 200,000 civilians from their homes.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was