PHILIPPINES
Navies hold sports event
Navy personnel played football, volleyball and tug-of-war — and drank beer — yesterday with their Vietnamese counterparts in a rare display of camaraderie in a South China Sea island. The day-long sports festival was held on Vietnamese-occupied Southwest Cay Island (Nanzih Reef, 南子礁) and also included cultural presentations, the two countries’ navies said in a joint statement. About 40 navy personnel sailed by boat to the island, bringing local delicacies, such as rice cakes. Southwest Cay Island, which the government also claims and calls Pugad, used to be occupied by the nation’s troops, but was seized by Vietnamese forces in the 1970s. “We’re trying to set an example,” Navy spokesman Gerald Fabic said. “We want to show that there can be other approaches to the disputes that can in fact ease the tensions.” The event was “proof that disputes do not hinder development of practical and tangible cooperation,” the two navies said. “This also serves as a model of cooperation for the other navies to emulate.”
INDIA
Rapes ‘accidental’: minister
A minister from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said rapes happen “accidentally” in the latest controversial remarks by a politician amid renewed anger over attacks against women. Ramsevak Paikra, the home minister of Chhattisgarh State who is responsible for law and order, said late on Saturday that rapes did not happen on purpose. “Such incidents [rapes] do not happen deliberately. These kind of incidents happen accidentally,” Paikra told reporters. Paikra, who was asked for his thoughts on the gang rape and lynching of two girls in Uttar Pradesh State, later said he had been misquoted. His original remarks were broadcast on television networks. The remarks come days after the home minister of the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh State said rapes were “sometimes right, sometimes wrong.”
AUSTRALIA
Intruder throws sex toys
A shop manager was pelted with sex toys by an intruder wearing a wig and crotchless pants in an erotica store stick-up, police said yesterday. The man forced his way into the Brisbane adult shop through the roof just before 5:30am on Saturday, setting off the alarm. “Upon being disturbed, the man threw a number of items he was attempting to steal out of his hands and proceeded to climb back through the roof,” police said in a statement. “Police located the man climbing down from the roof of the business.” According to local media reports, the intruder was wearing a wig, crotchless pants and a dress. He was charged with break-and-enter and drug possession offenses. “There’s definitely a funny side to it,” manager Fiona Coldrick told the Australian newspaper. “Obviously what he was wearing was pretty amusing. You’ve got to see the lighter side of it.”
AUSTRALIA
Remains found in crocodile
Human remains were recovered yesterday in the hunt for a man snatched by a crocodile in front of terrified relatives on a boat trip. The man, 62, was taken from his boat on the South Alligator River in northern Kakadu National Park late on Saturday afternoon as his wife, son and daughter-in-law looked on. Northern Territory police sergeant Andrew Hocking said two large crocodiles were shot and cut open by search crews yesterday at the waterhole where the man was last seen. “One of those crocs was later examined and a quantity of human remains was recovered,” Hocking told reporters, adding that the creature had been 4.7m long.
UNITED STATES
Comics killed, hurt in crash
Actor Tracy Morgan, known for his Emmy-nominated turn on television comedy 30 Rock, was critically injured on Saturday in a six-car crash in New Jersey that killed one of his friends, another comic. The incident occurred as the 45-year-old Morgan, a former star of Saturday Night Live, was heading home from a stand-up performance in the East Coast state of Delaware. A 35-year-old Georgia truck driver — identified as Kevin Roper — was charged with one count of death by auto and four counts of assault by auto, according to a statement from state prosecutors cited by local media outlets. Roper’s truck allegedly caused the accident on the New Jersey Turnpike near the state capital, Trenton, which involved Morgan’s limo bus, another truck, two cars and an SUV. Three people besides Morgan were hospitalized, two of them in critical condition, a hospital spokesman said. The National Transportation Safety Board said on Twitter that it was “sending investigators to the scene” to look into the circumstances of the crash.
UNITED STATES
Bergdahl threats probed
Authorities are investigating threats against the family of former Taliban prisoner, Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. FBI spokesman William Facer said on Saturday in a statement: “The FBI continues to monitor the situation in Hailey, Idaho. We are working jointly with our state and local partners and taking each threat seriously.” The soldier’s parents, Bob and Jani Bergdahl, live in Hailey. Facer did not detail the nature of the threats. Bergdahl’s hometown abruptly canceled plans on Wednesday for a welcome-home celebration, citing security concerns. The town of 8,000 has been swamped with hate mail and angry calls. Bergdahl’s release after five years of captivity in Afghanistan has touched off a debate over whether the 28-year-old should be given a hero’s welcome or punished as a deserter.
UNITES STATES
Texas GOP backs ‘gay cure’
The Texas Republican Party (GOP) now endorses so-called “reparative therapy” for gays, under a new policy statement given final approval at its annual convention on Saturday in Fort Worth. The new anti-gay language never came up for debate before about 7,000 delegates ratified a state Republican Party platform that Tea Party groups pushed further to the right, including on immigration. One influential Tea Party group, the Texas Eagle Forum, had urged the party to support psychological treatments that seek to turn gay people straight. It comes after Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie last fall signed a law banning such therapies on minors and California enacted a similar law. The Fort Worth Convention Hall cheered when party leaders announced that Christie finished a distant 11th in a 2016 presidential straw poll.
BRAZIL
200,000 ‘March for Jesus’
Police say hundreds of thousands of evangelical Christians took part in Saturday’s annual “March for Jesus” in Sao Paulo. The Sao Paulo Police Department said on its Twitter page that the event attracted at least 200,000 people and was expected to grow. The event unites believers from hundreds of Protestant churches in the world’s largest Roman Catholic country. In the past, the march has attracted as many as 1 million people. The Reborn in Christ Church that organizes the event has not estimated the number of participants. The rally was expected to last well into the night.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
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
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in