CHINA
Xinjiang mulls anti-terror laws
Xinjiang is considering drafting anti-terror laws for the first time, following a string of deadly incidents, the China Daily newspaper said yesterday. Authorities are keen to clamp down on unrest that has killed more than 100 people during the past year. Work on the anti-terror law is planned to start this year, although finalizing a draft may take several years, legislative official Bo Xiao told the Daily.
CHINA
Arson suspect identified
Authorities said yesterday that they have identified a person suspected of setting a fire aboard a bus that killed six people and injured 35 this week in Guiyang. Police did not say whether the suspect was on the bus at the time of the fire, or anything about a possible motive. The bus caught fire near an elementary school on Thursday. Media reports said about 50 people were inside the vehicle. “After some sparks gleamed in the middle of the bus, it all of a sudden got engulfed in a sea of flames,” a witness, Zeng Xi, said. “It only took a few minutes for the inferno to destroy the whole bus.”
CHINA
Zhou Yongkang ally resigns
A former vice minister of public security and ally of retired security chief Zhou Yongkang (周永康) has resigned from his position as a member of parliament for Sichuan Province, state media said, possibly opening the way for criminal charges against him. Li Dongsheng (李東生) was formally sacked this week after being suspended in December last year for suspected “serious discipline violations,” a term normally used to refer to corruption. The move removes Li’s immunity from prosecution as a member of the largely rubber-stamp body.
HONG KONG
Injured journalist improving
Kevin Lau (劉進圖), former editor of the liberal Ming Pao, is improving and has regained consciousness, officials said yesterday. Lau was attacked on Wednesday by a man wielding a cleaver. “His situation has improved from critical to serious this morning,” government spokesman said. The news came as a new group of journalist and news organizations said it would stage a rally tomorrow to condemn violence against the media.
THAILAND
Bus crash kills 15
A double-decker tour bus carrying students on a school trip to the beach yesterday crashed into a truck, killing 15 people and injuring more than 30, police said. The fatalities included 13 children, between the ages of 10 and 15, and two teachers, police Lieutenant Colonel Anukarn Thammavijarn said. The bus was carrying about 60 girls from a school in Nakhon Ratchasima for a daytrip to the seaside town of Pattaya. Police were searching for the driver, who fled the scene, and were investigating whether the brakes had failed or if the driver had dozed off at the wheel.
CHINA
Trafficking rings broken
Police have detained 1,094 people and rescued 382 infants in a nationwide crackdown on four online baby trafficking rings, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The traffickers used Web sites with names such as “China’s Orphan Network” and “Dream Adoption Home,” highlighting a trend of online deals that make it harder to hunt down the criminals, Xinhua added.
UGANDA
World Bank delays loan
The World Bank on Thursday postponed a US$90 million loan to the nation’s health system over a law that toughened punishment for gays, an unusual move for an institution that typically avoids wading into politics. “We have postponed the project for further review to ensure that the development objectives would not be adversely affected by the enactment of this new law,” World Bank spokesman David Theis said in an e-mail. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed an anti-gay bill earlier this week that strengthens already strict laws against homosexuals by imposing a life sentence for certain violations and making it a crime to not report anyone who breaks the law.
UNITED STATES
Hacker faces more charges
Federal prosecutors in New York on Thursday slapped two extra charges on a British man accused of hacking into thousands of government computer systems, officials said. They indicted Lauri Love, 28, on one count of hacking into the Federal Reserve and one count of aggravated identity theft. He was already facing charges in New Jersey for hacking the computer networks of the army, the Missile Defense Agency, NASA and other agencies.
IRAQ
Blast, militants kill 52
At least 52 people were killed on Thursday as a motorcycle rigged with explosives detonated in Baghdad’s Sadr City and militants targeted mostly Shiites around the country. The motorcycle was parked in a second-hand bike market in the Shiite Muslim neighborhood that was filled with people, mostly young men, when it exploded on Thursday afternoon, killing 31 and wounding 51 others, medical and police sources said. It was not clear who was behind the bombing, but violence against Shiites is often blamed on the Sunni Muslim Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
UNITED NATIONS
Syrian convoys attacked
There were two attempted attacks on Syrian convoys transporting chemical weapons late last month, Syrian authorities told the international mission overseeing the removal and destruction of its toxic arsenal, according to a UN report on Thursday. The monthly report to the UN Security Council of the joint mission of the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said the attempted attacks happened on Jan. 27. It gave no details on the location of the convoys. “In addition, Syrian authorities indicated that ongoing military activities rendered two sites inaccessible during most of the reporting period,” the five-page report said.
ITALY
Rome faces shutdown
Rome’s mayor says the capital next week risks a shutdown of mass transit, trash collection and other city services unless Parliament quickly frees up funds. Mayor Ignazio Marino said on Thursday that he was not seeking a bailout. The 320 million euros (US$440 million) blocked in Parliament are Roman taxpayer money that the national government was supposed to give back to the city by yesterday. However, Parliament is suffering gridlock as opposition lawmakers use stalling tactics to protest that Italy last week got another premier who was not elected. Marino says if the funds do not arrive, city buses will not have fuel, trash collection will halt and daycare and other public services will close. “I can’t blow on buses to make them go,” he said.
MEXICO
Protest investigated
Sinaloa state authorities said on Thursday that they are investigating who organized a march in which hundreds demanded the release of cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, a display of public support for the crime boss in a state that many say he controls. Govenor Mario Lopez Valdez told Televisa that officials suspect Guzman’s family and friends. “We don’t know at this time, but the investigation should reveal that,” Lopez said. Hundreds of people marched on Wednesday demanding that authorities free the boss of the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel. Many said he provides needed jobs in poor mountain areas.
UNITED STATES
Google maps polar bears
San Francisco-based Google on Thursday added polar bears to the natural splendor people can on the Internet giant’s free online mapping service. Members of the Google Maps team joined with non-profit group Polar Bears International to venture into tundra in a remote part of Canada’s Churchill, Manitoba, late last year for images of the animals. However, the Google Maps images only captured a few sightings of the polar bears, whose population is said to be threatened by warming global temperatures.
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