INDONESIA
Papuans protest to Australia
A student group says three activists from restive West Papua Province breached security to enter the Australian consulate in Bali, calling for leaders attending the APEC summit on the island to pressure the government to release political prisoners. The Alliance of Papuan Students says the men entered the compound early yesterday. They handed over a letter that asked Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and other leaders to push the country to free 55 people imprisoned for “discussing their political and human rights beliefs,” according to a copy of the hand-written letter released by the group. The Australian government confirmed that the Papuans delivered a protest letter to the consulate and left voluntarily before 7am. The country is highly sensitive to the separatist struggles in Papua, a former Dutch colony.
THAILAND
Plane skids off runway
Nok Air says one of its planes has skidded off a runway in the northeast, but none of the 25 passengers and crew aboard were injured. The airline says the incident yesterday involved a SAAB 340B turboprop chartered by Siam General Aviation Co, which is known as Nok Mini. The flight left the northern city of Chiang Mai and was landing at Undon Thani airport at the time. Nok Air blamed “a glitch in the engine,” but gave no other details. The airline says the plane is not blocking other flights and will be inspected.
THAILAND
Clash with militants kills six
Six people, including two policemen, were shot dead in a fierce gun battle between security forces and militants, authorities said yesterday, after a raid in the south of the country. The clash broke out after a combined army, police and paramilitary group tried to search a village in Narathiwat, one of several conflict-prone provinces in the Muslim-majority region, on Saturday. “It was quite a big gun battle, which lasted a long time,” southern army spokesman Colonel Pramote Prom-In said. “The dead were on our wanted lists.” He said a further seven suspects with warrants issued for them were also arrested in the raid. Almost a decade of conflict has left more than 5,700 people dead in the south. Shadowy groups of Muslim militants, calling for autonomy for the region, have waged near-daily bomb and gun attacks, targeting security forces and civilians from both the Buddhist and Muslim communities. The attacks continue despite several rounds of peace talks, hosted by Malaysia, between the authorities and one of a network of rebel groups. The next round of talks is expected later this month.
UNITED KINGDOM
Maddie’s parents hopeful
Madeleine McCann’s parents says they’re “greatly encouraged” by the expanding police investigation into the case of their missing daughter. Kate and Gerry McCann released a statement yesterday indicating they believe new information made available to police and a detailed BBC Crimewatch show may finally turn up vital information. The statement says the couple hopes the show “will bring further new evidence which will take us a step closer to finding Madeleine and to bringing those responsible for her abduction to justice.” The police said this week they are combing telephone records of thousands of tourists and residents who were at a Portuguese resort at the time of the three-year-old girl’s disappearance in May 2007. The Crimewatch show to be aired today will include a detailed reconstruction of the crime.
UNITED STATES
Mall self-immolator dies
A man who set himself on fire on the National Mall has died of his injuries, Washington police spokesman Araz Alali said. The man died Friday night at a hospital he had been airlifted to, Alali said, adding that the man was so badly burned that he will need to be identified through DNA and dental records. The man poured a can of gasoline on himself in the center of the mall on Friday afternoon and then set himself alight, prompting passing joggers to take off their shirts to help douse the flames. Police are investigating the man’s motive for self-immolating.
UNITED STATES
Tiger mauls zoo worker
A tiger ripped up the left arm of a worker at an Oklahoma animal park after the woman stuck her hand into the cat’s enclosure. Joe Schreibvogel, owner of Garold Wayne Interactive Zoological Park in Wynnewood, said the woman, in her early 20s, was undergoing surgery on Saturday at an Oklahoma City hospital to try and save her arm. “He tore her arm up pretty bad,” Schreibvogel said. “Her entire arm was still attached. It was badly, badly damaged... She pulled her own arm out. The tiger didn’t maul her. The tiger was in his cage and she violated his space by sticking her arm into his space.” He said that the park has a strict rule against introducing any body part into a wild animal’s enclosure.
CANADA
Cairo releases Canadians
Egyptian authorities have released two Canadians who had been held without charges in a Cairo prison since mid-August, officials said yesterday. Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomed the release of John Greyson, a Toronto filmmaker and university professor, and Tarek Loubani, an emergency room doctor from London, Ontario. Harper, speaking in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, said that Ottawa “welcomes this decision by the government of Egypt” to set the pair free. The pair had not been formally charged. They were arrested amid bloody clashes between Egyptian security forces and Islamists.
COLOMBIA
Anti-drug plane crashes
A small plane on a US counter-drug mission crashed on Saturday near the city of Capurgana in a remote, jungle region in the north of the country, killing three US contractors and a Panamanian National Guardsman, and seriously injuring two other Americans on board. The two injured passengers were rescued by soldiers and taken to a hospital in Bogota, the US Southern Command said in a statement. The Dash 8 was tracking a suspected smuggling vessel and another vessel over the west Caribbean region when it lost radio contact with the Joint Interagency Task Force South, a US-sponsored multinational task force in Florida that runs drug interdiction in the region, task force spokeswoman Jody Drives said.
IRELAND
Bid to scrap senate fails
Prime Minister Enda Kenny has vowed to push forward with reform of the upper house of parliament after voters rejected his plan to abolish the Seanad Eireann — the Senate — to save the bailed-out nation money. In a surprise blow for Kenny after he personally led the campaign to ditch the Senate, voters in a referendum on Friday narrowly opted to keep the 60-member house, according to results announced late on Saturday. Final results revealed that 51.7 percent voted in favor of keeping the Senate, while 48.3 percent wanted to scrap it. Turnout was 39.2 percent.
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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