LIBYA
Election ruled faulty
The supreme court yesterday ruled that the election of Prime Minister Ahmed Miitig in a chaotic session in the interim parliament last month was unconstitutional.
Outgoing Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani had said he would await the judiciary’s ruling before deciding whether to hand over power. Thani had announced his resignation earlier this year after an armed attack on his family, but he insisted that his successor should be chosen by a new parliament rather than its contested predecessor and refused to recognize Miitig’s Cabinet.
HONG KONG
Consulate gay marriage ban
The government has refused to allow same-sex couples to marry at the British consulate in the territory, UK officials said yesterday, prompting heavy criticism from gay and lesbian rights groups. The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced last week that it would allow its overseas missions to perform same-sex marriages for Britons and their partners in countries where it is illegal under local laws. However the service, which coincides with legislation to permit same-sex marriages taking effect in the UK, was contingent on local authorities granting their approval.
INDIA
Missing students sought
Rescuers in boats were searching a Himalayan river yesterday for dozens of students swept away when a dam released a rush of water without warning, and police said four bodies had been found. The 25 students from the southern city of Hyderabad had been taking photographs on Sunday evening at the banks of the Beas River when they were hit by the rush of water from the Larji hyropower station near the mountain resort town of Manali in Himachal Pradesh. They had been part of a larger field trip of some 48 students spending 10 days near Manali. Some students at the river banks managed to scramble to safety.
CHINA
Bombing suspect held
A jobless man was detained in Heilongjiang Province yesterday for allegedly bombing a popular fast-food chain after blackmailing it, Xinhua news agency reported. Zhu Shibin used “black powder disassembled from firecrackers” to make the bomb, which was detonated at Dico’s restaurant in Anda City on Sunday morning, Xinhua said, citing police.
Zhu, 34 and unemployed, telephoned the restaurant beforehand and said there would be an explosion within five minutes, the report said. No deaths were reported. Zhu was detained in nearby Daqing City, Xinhua said, adding that “the motive of the crime is not yet known.” The report cited police saying he blackmailed the restaurant for 100,000 yuan (US$16,000), but offered no further details.
CHINA
Raids linked to prostitution
A raid by officers on small bathhouses and other businesses associated with prostitution sparked clashes lasting hours in Guangzhou, police said yesterday. The riot on Sunday in the city’s Sanyuanli District was started by people who were resisting inspections, according to a statement on the Guangzhou police’s microblog. It said crowds gathered and roads were blocked, but additional officers dispatched to the scene were able to restore order at about 8pm. There was no mention of injuries or arrests, although photographs on social media sites showed several police vehicles lying on their sides after having been flipped.
UNITED STATES
Teen carries brother 64km
A Michigan teenager carrying his seven-year-old brother on his back battled heat, rain, fatigue and more to finish a 64km walk to raise awareness about cerebral palsy. Hunter Gandee, 14, walked from his junior-high school not far from the Ohio border to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He packed his brother, Braden, throughout the two-day journey. On Sunday, they strolled up a winding road toward the university’s wrestling center. Asked how he felt, Braden said simply: “Tired.” Called the Cerebral Palsy Swagger, the trek’s goal was to raise awareness about cerebral palsy and to put a face on the neurological disorder.
UNITED STATES
Suicide couple kill three
A man and a woman ambushed two police officers eating lunch at a Las Vegas restaurant, fatally shooting them at point-blank range before fleeing to a nearby Wal-Mart, where they killed a third person and then themselves in an apparent suicide pact, authorities said on Sunday. The shooters walked into CiCi’s Pizza on Sunday and gunned down officers Alyn Beck, 41, and Igor Soldo, 31, Las Vegas police officials said. One of the officers was able to fire back before he died, but it is unclear if he hit the suspects, Sheriff Doug Gillespie of the Las Vegas Metro Police Department told a news conference. One of the shooters yelled: “This is a revolution,” but a motive remains under investigation, Las Vegas police spokesman Larry Hadfield said.
SPAIN
Basques form 123km chain
Tens of thousands of Basques held hands forming a 123km human chain across their region on Sunday in a push for independence. More than 150,000 people joined the chain, which extended from the city of Durango to Pamplona, the capital of the neighboring Navarra region, which has a significant Basque-speaking population, according to the event organizer, called It’s In Our Hands. “This is a democratic demand. We are saying we are a people, we have the right to decide and now is the time,” group spokesman Angel Oiarbide told reporters.
KOSOVO
Thaci wins third term
Former rebel leader Hashim Thaci claimed a third term as prime minister on Sunday after official preliminary results gave him the lead in a snap parliamentary election that also saw minority Serbs casting votes for the 120-seat assembly, despite their rejection of the country’s claim to statehood. Official preliminary results gave Thaci’s Democratic Party of Kosovo a lead of 3 percentage points over the opposition Democratic League of Kosovo, with more than 70 percent of the ballots counted. The hardline ethnic Albanian Self-determination movement was in third place, its best showing ever in a general election.
UNITED STATES
Tracy Morgan recovering
Tracy Morgan was recovering on Sunday, but was expected to remain hospitalized for several weeks after having surgery on a broken leg suffered in a chain-reaction crash on the New Jersey Turnpike that left the actor-comedian and two others critically injured and another man dead. The 45-year-old Morgan, a former Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock cast member, remained in critical condition, but was “more responsive” on Sunday after having surgery for a broken leg, spokesman Lewis Kay said. Kay said that Morgan, who was airlifted to the hospital, also sustained a broken femur, broken nose and several broken ribs and is expected to remain hospitalized for “several weeks.”
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