Japan
Church fire kills four
Four members of one family, including two young children, died in a fire that broke out early yesterday at a church in central Ishikawa Prefecture. The four victims are believed to be Ayako Takabuchi, 37, her two sons, aged two and four, and Takabuchi’s 68-year-old mother, local police said. They had built the church next to their home in Nonoichi City in order to practice the Shinto-derived Tenrikyo religion, police said. “Rescuers recovered four bodies from the gutted building,” a local police spokesman said. “They are believed to be Takabuchi, two boys and her mother as we have not been able to contact them since the fire.”
ZAMBIA
Boat capsizes, 26 drowned
At least 26 people, most of them children, died when a crowded boat capsized while on the way to a national celebration, police said on Saturday. Among the drowned in Friday’s accident were schoolchildren aged from six to 15 years, as well as a baby. The state broadcaster said 23 of those who died were children. One student survived. They were traveling to another school across Lake Kariba in the south, where they were meant to participate in celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of independence from the UK. The accident was caused by overloading, according to authorities.
INDIA
Bus swerves into ravine
Nine people were killed when a passenger bus traveling overnight in the remote northeast swerved over a bridge and broke through the railing to fall into a marshy ravine before dawn yesterday, police said. Another 28 injured passengers, some in critical condition, were taken to hospital. Authorities were investigating what caused the crash at about 2am near the town of Kaliabor in Assam State. Police in the state capital of Gauhati said the driver was among those killed. TV news channels broadcast images of the overturned bus lying upside down in the swamp about 6m below the bridge. Nine bodies covered with white sheets were lined up by the side of the road.
AFGHANISTAN
Mullah sentenced for rape
A court has sentenced a mullah to 20 years in prison after finding the religious teacher guilty of raping a 10-year-old girl. The sentence, passed by a Kabul judge on Saturday, has been welcomed by women’s support groups as a rare victory in their fight for justice for female victims of sex crimes. Rape is often treated as adultery in the country, and victims can face prison. Hassina Sarwari, who runs a shelter for women in northern Kunduz Province, where the rape took place, welcomed the court’s decision, saying yesterday that if the trial had not been transferred to Kabul the result would probably have been very different.
BOTSWANA
Ruling party retains power
The ruling party has won re-election despite a vigorous challenge from the opposition, extending its decades-old rule, an election official said yesterday. The Botswana Democratic Party secured at least 29 parliamentary seats out of 57 directly contested seats, meaning it had enough support to form a government, election commission spokesman Osupile Maroba said. An opposition group, the Umbrella for Democratic Change, won 13 seats and another group, the Botswana Congress Party, secured two seats. Counting for the remaining constituencies continued. The election was held on Friday.
UNITED KINGDOM
Jack Bruce dies aged 71
Jack Bruce, who became famous in the 1960s as the bassist and lead vocalist for the hugely successful rock group Cream, and whose adventurous approach to his instrument influenced two generations of rock bassists, died on Saturday at his home in Suffolk, England. He was 71. His family announced the death on his Web site. A spokesman said the cause was liver disease — Bruce had received a liver transplant several years ago. Bruce was well known in British rock and blues circles, but virtually unknown in the US when he teamed up with the guitarist Eric Clapton and the drummer Ginger Baker to form Cream in 1966.
UNITED STATES
Suspect deported twice
A man suspected of killing two deputies during a shooting rampage in California was deported twice to Mexico and had a drug conviction, federal authorities said on Saturday. The suspected shooter told Sacramento County Sheriff’s investigators that he was 34-year-old Marcelo Marquez of Salt Lake City. However, his fingerprints match the biometric records of a Luis Enrique Monroy-Bracamonte in a federal database, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said. He was first removed from the country in 1997 after being convicted in Arizona for possession of narcotics for sale. He was arrested and repatriated to Mexico a second time in 2001, Kice said. “The fingerprints were the basis for our request for an immigration detainer,” she said. The detainer requests that local authorities transfer him to federal custody after his case is adjudicated. The suspect was being held without bail on suspicion of two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and two counts of carjacking. His wife, 38-year-old Janelle Marquez Monroy, was also in custody on suspicion of attempted murder and carjacking in connection with the attack on Friday that left two deputies dead and two other victims wounded.
UNITED STATES
Gay couples to get benefits
The federal government is recognizing gay marriage in six more states and extending federal benefits to those couples, Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Saturday. Gay marriage recently became legal in Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, North Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming. The government’s announcement follows the US Supreme Court’s decision earlier this month to decline to hear appeals from five states that sought to keep their marriage bans in place. It brings the total number of states with federal recognition of gay marriage to 32, plus the District of Colombia. Couples married in these states will qualify for a range of federal benefits, including social security retirement and veterans’ benefits. “With each new state where same-sex marriages are legally recognized, our nation moves closer to achieving full equality for all Americans,” Holder said.
CANADA
Five injured in explosion
The mayor of Sarnia says five people have been sent to the hospital after an explosion at an industrial plant in the southwestern Ontario city. Mayor Mike Bradley said the explosion occurred on Saturday afternoon at a Veolia ES Canada Industrial Services plant. Bradley says one person was critically injured in the blast, while three suffered serious injuries and one has minor injuries. He said the fire had been extinguished and the situation was under control. James MacDonald, a spokesman for air ambulance Ornge, said four patients with burns were rushed by paramedics to a local hospital.
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