PHILIPPINES
Typhoon party canceled
Organizers of a dance party marking the anniversary of Typhoon Haiyan’s rampage yesterday said they had called the event off after complaints. The event, scheduled for today in Tacloban, the area most devastated by Haiyan, was supposed to be a celebration of the city’s recovery and the resilience of its residents, lead organizer Calai Cinco said. “We’ve already canceled it. We’ve had some complaints. There were a lot of negative vibes on the Facebook page,” she said. The event was intended to raise money for victims of the storm, but some people thought the party and its accompanying T-shirts made light of the tragedy.
MYANMAR
Body shows signs of torture
The body of freelance journalist Aung Kyaw Naing, who was shot by soldiers, showed signs that he was tortured before he died, his wife, Ma Thandar, said yesterday. The body, which was exhumed on Wednesday, had a broken skull, broken jaw and two penetration marks on the chest, while several ribs and an ankle appeared to have been broken, she said. The reporter was detained by the military while covering clashes between the army and ethnic Karen rebels in Mon state in September. The military said last week they shot him dead on Oct. 4 as he tried to reach for a soldier’s gun during an attempted escape.
SOUTH KOREA
CEO may face 15 years
Prosecutors yesterday demanded a 15-year jail term for the president of the firm which operated the Sewol ferry, holding him partly responsible for the April 16 disaster that killed more than 300 people. Chonghaejin Marine Co chief executive officer Kim Han-sik is on trial in Gwangju on charges of criminal negligence and embezzlement. Sentences of between four and six years were demanded for 10 others on trial alongside Kim on charges of criminal negligence.
BANGLADESH
Politician may hang soon
The government may hang a senior Muslim leader as early as next week after the Supreme Court upheld his death sentence for war crimes, Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Anisul Huq said yesterday. Mohammad Kamaruzzaman of the Jamaat-e-Islami party would be the second senior Jamaat leader to hang for crimes committed during the 1971 war of independence. The 62-year-old has seven days to petition the president for a pardon, Huq said. Kamaruzzaman was found guilty in May last year of mass murder, torture and abductions.
PAKISTAN
Scores nabbed in mob kill
Police say they have arrested as many as 45 Muslims in connection with the killing of a Christian couple for allegedly desecrating the Koran. Local police officer Mohammad Iqbal said the arrests were made before dawn on Wednesday in the town of Kot Radha Kishan in Punjab Province. He said hundreds of Muslims took part in the attack on Tuesday, in which a mob killed the couple and burned their bodies in a brick kiln where the man and his wife worked. He said the attackers accused the couple of desecrating the Koran.
INDIA
Balloon guests land in jail
Two foreign tourists unwittingly landed in jail this week after strong winds blew their hot air balloon off course. The two sisters from the West Indies were enjoying a ride over the desert in the western state of Rajasthan on Tuesday when the balloon’s pilot lost control, forcing him to make an emergency landing. Local media said the balloon landed in the prison yard, to the consternation of officers. “When the operator saw that they were sailing over the Anasagar Lake, he got alarmed and tried to control the movement of the balloon,” the Indian Express quoted local police inspector Hanuman Vishnoi as saying. “The nearest landing was the police lines and even though he steered towards it, the strong winds made the balloon travel further up to Ajmer jail.” Authorities have canceled balloon rides over the area, reports said.
UGANDA
Officers probed over abuse
Fifteen senior military commanders have been suspended over their conduct in Somalia, including allegations of sexual exploitation, the army said yesterday. The action comes in the wake of a report by Human Rights Watch accusing troops with the internationally funded African Union force in Somalia of preying on vulnerable women and girls. “We are doing a general appraisal on performance of the force,” defense and army spokesman Paddy Ankunda said. “It’s not sexual harassment alone,” he said, but added the concerns were “one aspect we are looking at.”
EGYPT
Woman injured near palace
A bomb blast just 100m from a Cairo presidential palace wounded a female passer-by early yesterday, just hours after a train bomb killed three people, security officials said. The new bombing followed an attack on a train north of the capital late on Wednesday that killed two policemen and a civilian, the latest in a spate of attacks since the army ousted president Mohamed Morsi in July last year. The blast struck near a palace in the northeast of Cairo which is rarely used by President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, whose main office is in another palace in the capital. The woman suffered only minor injuries from the crude bomb, which was planted under a bridge, interior ministry spokesman Hani Abdel Latif said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Skyscraper’s bolts break
Engineers are inspecting the 47-story London tower known as the Cheesegrater after two steel bolts broke and part of one fell to the ground. An area around the base of the building on Leadenhall Street was cordoned off after the incident, which caused no injuries, building codeveloper British Land Co said in a statement yesterday. Each bolt is the size of a human arm, the Daily Telegraph reported. “There is no risk to the structural integrity of the building,” British Land said. Contractor Laing O’Rourke and structural engineers Arup Group are carrying out the investigation, British Land said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing