CHINA
US$6m in Ebola aid sent
Beijing has donated US$6 million to help stave off food shortages in the three African countries worst affected by the Ebola virus, the World Food Program (WFP) announced yesterday, part of its growing assistance to a continent where its companies have become major investors. WFP China representative Brett Rierson said the money is being spent on one month of emergency food rations of mainly rice, lentils and yellow peas for 300,000 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The Ebola outbreak in those countries has killed more than 4,500 people out of the 9,000 infected and led to widespread transport disruptions, higher food prices and the abandonment of crops and livestock by some farmers fleeing to areas considered safe. The WFP has now raised US$59 million of a US$179 million appeal for emergency Ebola food aid, with the US contributing US$8.8 million and Japan US$6 million. Altogether, donors have given nearly US$400 million to UN agencies and aid groups, still far from the US$988 million requested.
CHINA
Bear bites boy’s arm off
A bear in Henan Province has bitten off the arm of a nine-year-old boy who tried to feed it through its cage, state media and a doctor said on Sunday. Media reports said the attack happened on Saturday afternoon at Pingdingshan Hebin Park, which has a zoo inside. The boy managed to push his arm through the bear’s cage to feed it when the bear bit him. A doctor at the Pingdingshan No. 152 Hospital, who treated the boy, on Sunday said that he lost his entire right arm, which had to be amputated.
PAKISTAN
Robbers raid top charity
Armed robbers have raided one of the country’s leading charities and stolen US$400,000 in cash, as well as 5kg of gold, police said yesterday. At least eight robbers struck at the Edhi Centre in Karachi, taking several staff hostage and threatening the organization’s revered founder, Abdul Sattar Edhi, at gunpoint. Edhi, aged in his 80s, is one of Pakistan’s best-loved figures for his unstinting work providing ambulance services across the country and running shelters for women, children and the destitute. Police said the robbers broke into the center, where Edhi also lives, on Sunday and took the mostly female staff hostage. Edhi, who has been on dialysis for the past year, was sleeping in his room and was woken at gunpoint by the robbers, who demanded the keys to the vaults. The philanthropist told the robbers he did not have the keys which were held by his wife. The robbers then smashed the locks open. “Our investigation is going on, but it seems that some insider was involved in the robbery,” said Zahid Hussain, a police officer who is part of the investigation team.
THAILAND
Search for S Koreans goes on
The search has resumed for two South Korean tourists missing off the southern coast after their tour boat crashed into a fishing vessel, police said yesterday. The accident occurred on Sunday evening when the speedboat, carrying about 40 passengers — including South Koreans, Chinese and a number of Western tourists — struck a fishing boat in the Andaman Sea between the popular islands of Phi Phi and Phuket. “The driver of the speedboat was distracted and pulling a plastic bag from his foot when he crashed,” Colonel Pruttipong Nuchnart of Krabi police said, adding that he had been arrested for careless driving. The search was postponed overnight. Conflicting reports on Sunday said the missing duo were Chinese.
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