BELARUS
Russia, Ukraine talks end
Talks between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine apparently failed to make a major breakthrough toward ending brutal fighting in east Ukraine yesterday as Russian President Vladimir Putin played down the entry by his troops into the former Soviet state. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Putin sat down for a crunch one-on-one in Minsk after marathon talks involving top EU officials as tensions spiked after Moscow admitted for the first time that its troops had crossed into Ukraine. Poroshenko said there were “some results,” but there seemed to be no significant compromises.
PHILIPPINES
Resort raid suspect caught
Police yesterday said they had arrested a militant suspected of taking part in at least one deadly kidnapping raid on a Malaysian diving resort island. Hundreds of members of a police special force unit were deployed to arrest Abu Sayyaf member Mobin Hailil at a remote village in the Tawi-Tawi archipelago near the Malaysian sea border on Tuesday, they said. The suspect, a Tawi-Tawi native and a “leader” of Abu Sayyaf members based on the island, did not resist arrest, but a loaded handgun and a grenade were seized from him, Napenas added.
INDIA
Woman fights off leopard
A 56-year-old woman is recovering in hospital after killing a leopard that attacked her as she tended her fields armed only with a sickle. The woman told Indian broadcaster CNN-IBN that she battled with the leopard for half an hour on Sunday before finally delivering a killer blow with her sickle. “The leopard lunged at me many times and we fought for a long time,” she told the channel from her hospital bed in Uttarakhand State, her arms bandaged and a livid scar across her right cheek. “I got hold of my sickle and fought with it. That’s when the leopard was killed,” said the woman, named as Kamla Devi. Devi, who was widowed a few years ago, told the Hindustan Times daily she was “terrified” when the leopard attacked, but was determined not to succumb. “I gathered my courage to fight back. I promised myself that this is not my last day here,” she told the paper.
UNITED KINGDOM
Bush plays comeback gig
Kate Bush mixed note-perfect renditions of her biggest hits with two visually stunning interpretations of her longer conceptual works on Tuesday to delight fans who had waited 35 years for the singer and songwriter to return to the stage. Receiving a standing ovation before she had sung a note, Bush opened with Lily from her 1993 release The Red Shoes, followed by Hounds of Love. She singled out her teenage son Bertie, who sang and acted in the show, for giving her the confidence to perform.
UNITED STATES
Crocodile attacks swimmers
Two swimmers taking an early-morning dip in a Florida canal have earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first recorded humans in the country to be bitten by an American crocodile, wildlife officials say. Alejandro Jimenez, 26, and Lisset Rendon, 23, came face to face with the 2.7m reptile at 2:30am on Sunday, after taking to the water during a house party. As Jimenez recovered in hospital on Tuesday from bite wounds to his torso and hands, and his girlfriend, who was bitten on her shoulder, rested at home, trappers continued to scour the canal for the giant critter. Residents say at least three large crocodiles live behind their homes, one noted for taking late-night strolls across roads in the neighborhood.
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