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.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion