CHINA
War games to start today
The country has set up alternative flight routes to minimize delays related to military exercises along its southeastern coast that start today, the Ministry of Defense said. The exercises are part of regularly scheduled drills aiming to improve the military’s ability to operate under simulated war conditions, the ministry said in a statement on Monday. It gave no details about where exactly the drills would take place, but said officers had been dispatched to regional airports to facilitate the shifting of civilian flights to alternative routes to reduce the impact on travelers. It said the military designated corridors of protected air space to reduce disruptions.
PHILIPPINES
Islamic militants kill 16
Sixteen people, including children, were killed when Islamic militants opened fire on two vehicles in a remote southern town yesterday, the military said. Abu Sayyaf gunmen opened fire on the vehicles in Talipao town before dawn in what appeared to be an ambush related to a clan feud, local marine commander Brigadier General Martin Pinto said. A number of policemen were riding aboard the two vehicles.
JAPAN
PM heads for Trinidad
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe left Mexico on Sunday having struck a series of energy deals and headed for Trinidad and Tobago, his next stop on a tour of Latin America. The leader and his wife received a red-carpet sendoff flanked by soldiers at the presidential hangar, and were bid farewell by Trinidadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Antonio Meade, according to a statement. Abe’s nine-day tour of the region will also take him to Colombia, Chile and Brazil.
THAILAND
Girls killed, seven wounded
A 12-year-old girl was killed and seven people, including two other girls, were wounded in a roadside bomb attack near an army base in the insurgency-plagued south, police said yesterday. Suspected insurgents detonated an improvised radio-controlled bomb near an army base in Pattani Province’s Sai Buri district, as a group of soldiers were finishing their guard duty at a mosque and returning to the base on Sunday night, police Colonel Panya Karawanan said. He said the explosion killed the 12-year-old and wounded two soldiers and five civilians, including a seven-year-old girl and her one-year-old sister. The attack came at the end of Ramadan, in which a spurt of attacks has occurred. More than 5,000 people have been killed since an Islamic insurgency erupted in 2004.
AUSTRALIA
Koala survives ride under car
Timberwolf the koala was lucky to be alive yesterday after surviving a terrifying 88km ride down a busy freeway clinging to the bottom of a car. The four-year-old male, who survived with nothing more than a torn nail, was struck by the vehicle near Maryborough in Queensland State on Friday. The Australia Zoo wildlife hospital said it latched onto the bottom of the car as it sped away, with the family inside not knowing they had a marsupial on board. It was only when they stopped in Gympie after a high-speed freeway drive that they noticed it, and called the hospital for help. The maximum speed on the freeway is 110kph. Australia Zoo vet Claude Lacasse said it was amazing the koala, named Timberwolf by the rescuers who brought him in, was in such great health. Timberwolf was given pain killers for the torn nail and is recovering in a tree at the zoo north of Brisbane as vets work out exactly where he grabbed hold of the car so they can return him to the wild.
NIGERIA
Kano cancels festivities
The northern city of Kano on Sunday canceled celebrations to mark the end of the Ramadan after two bomb attacks blamed on the militant group Boko Haram. At least five people were killed and eight were injured in a bomb attack on the Saint Charles Catholic Church in a mainly Christian area of the city, police said. The attack came shortly after the end of mass at the church, police spokesman Frank Mba. He said police suspect an improvised explosive device was thrown from across the road. Meanwhile, a woman suicide bomber blew herself up outside a university after police prevented her from carrying out an attack, injuring five officers, Mba said. “A female suicide bomber was isolated as she was walking toward the gate of the university,” he said, adding that she had hidden the bomb under her “long black hijab.”
MEXICO
Cops arrested for crime ties
More than 30 police officers have been arrested for alleged organized crime ties and possible involvement in the killing of fellow cops, authorities said on Sunday. Those detained include a former top public safety official from the town of Tarimbaro, an ex-commander of the same unit and 18 more active duty agents, a public safety source in Michoacan said. Authorities are investigating whether those taken into custody were involved in the recent murders of three senior officials in Tarimbaro’s public safety unit, the source added. A second operation netted 12 police officers in Charapan, authorities said. The suspects were transferred to the state capital, Morelia, where they were scheduled to appear before a judge. Michoacan, on the nation’s Pacific coast, is a key drug trafficking area for US-bound narcotics.
ARUBA
Venezuelan diplomat freed
The government has released a former Venezuelan general who was detained on US drug charges when he arrived to serve as his country’s consul, sending him home on Sunday night. Officials had previously said that Hugo Carvajal did not have immunity from arrest because he had yet to be accredited by the Netherlands, which manages the foreign affairs of its former colony. However, in a hastily called news conference the justice minister said Carvajal was being let go because Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans decided Carvajal did have immunity, but also declared him persona non grata.
SPAIN
Seville bans outdoor noise
City councilors on Friday passed a raft of regulations looking to silence the noisy city, banning activities ranging from domino games on the outdoor terraces of bars and cafes to singing in the street. “It’s a balance between the right of residents to get a little rest and the development of economic activities,” City Councilor Maximiliano Vilchez told reporters. Residents have been urging the city to crack down on noise for years. The rules focus on the city’s hundreds of bars and cafes, where patrons regularly crowd outside. Anyone having an “excessively loud” conversation on the street now faces fines, as do bar owners who set up televisions on their terraces or who serve patrons who are standing up outside. Drivers are also targeted. Playing loud music while driving, having a car alarm that goes off for more than three minutes or revving car engines unnecessarily are all prohibited. However, karaoke bars and nightclubs are still allowed next to homes, and religious processions, the city’s April Fair and parades are also exempt from the new rules.
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