UNITED STATES
Boy, 3, shoots himself dead
A three-year-old Texas boy died after accidentally shooting himself in the head at home on Friday, US media said. The little boy, who was at home in Houston with his mother and brother at the time, was rushed by helicopter to a hospital in critical condition, but later died, the NBC news station KPRC said. He has not been named. “I think it’s horrible. I think it’s horrible when any child gets shot,” neighbor Kristine Longwood told KPRC, which cited detectives as saying it appeared to be a tragic accident.
UNITED STATES
NRDC files suit against EPA
An environmental group sued the US government on Friday, accusing regulators of discounting the dangers that a widely used herbicide poses to the declining monarch butterfly population. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in US District Court in New York. The suit claimed the agency has failed to heed warnings about the dangers to monarchs posed by glyphosate, the key ingredient in a widely used herbicide. Glyphosate is used in Monsanto Co’s Roundup and other herbicides. Federal law requires the EPA to ensure that pesticides it approves will not cause “unreasonable adverse effects on the environment, including wildlife.” However, the agency has never considered glyphosate’s impacts on monarchs, the lawsuit states. The NRDC and other environmental organizations have asked the EPA to review what they say is a large body of scientific evidence demonstrating glyphosate’s “devastating” effects on monarchs, but the EPA has not acted, the suit claims.
UNITED STATES
Llama drama sparks frenzy
A pair of sprightly llamas jigged their way to immediate social media stardom on Thursday after they led dozens of US police officers around the streets of Phoenix, Arizona. The duo, had the eyes of the world on them as US media transmitted live aerial footage of them darting across busy roads and parking lots in their brazen hour-long attempt at evading capture. Their run for freedom in Sun City, a Phoenix suburb, after numerous hapless attempts at capture by police officers and startled members of the public failed, finally ended when one was lassoed and taken in, followed soon after by the second, when it was cornered and gave up the game. The llamas escaped after a rancher brought them to an assisted living facility to visit an ex-llama rancher as a form of animal therapy, Lieutenant Brandon Jones of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office told local media.
MEXICO
Harry Potter items on display
A young Mexican’s fascination with Harry Potter has grown into the world’s biggest private collection of toys, books, clothes and other items related to author J.K. Rowling’s fantasy hero. Now, other fans have a chance to see it all. The collection belonging to real-estate lawyer Menahem Asher Silva Vargas has been certified by Guinness Awards as the largest anywhere and it is on display at the Mexican Museum of Antique Toys in Mexico City. Silva Vargas started collecting Harry Potter items 15 years ago, when he was 12. He started with toys, then branched out to all sorts of things, from scarves to soda cans from Japan and Chinese-language editions of Rowling’s books. He has 3,097 items in all. The exhibition formally opened yesterday.
INDONESIA
AirAsia fuselage recovered
The final major part of the fuselage of an AirAsia jet that crashed into the Java Sea in December last year has been retrieved, officials said yesterday. The mangled wreckage was pulled from the sea on Friday and loaded onto a ship, national search and rescue chief Bambang Soelistyo told reporters. “We have retrieved on Friday the last and large part of the AirAsia fuselage with a wing still intact,” Soelistyo told reporters. No bodies were found during the course of the operation.
MYANMAR
Police arrest photojournalist
Police have arrested a photojournalist who posted a satirical message on Facebook that mocked a historic battle and the nation’s leader. Police yesterday confirmed that Aung Nay Myo was detained on a charge of violating the 1950 Emergency Provision Act. If found guilty, he could face a maximum of seven years in prison. His post satirized the 1971 battle between government troops and communist fighters saying that it was directed by President Thein Sein. The government often uses the act to persecute dissidents and political activists. At least nine journalists and several publishers and owners of media outlets are serving prison sentences from two to seven years and nearly a dozen others are facing charges, undermining modest advances in media freedoms following a half-century of military rule.
CHINA
Wild pandas on the rise
Wild giant pandas in the nation are doing well. The latest census by the State Forestry Administration shows the panda population has grown by 268 to a total of 1,864 since the last survey ending 2003. Nearly three-quarters of the pandas live in the southwestern province of Sichuan. The remaining pandas have been found in the neighboring Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. “The rise in the population of wild giant pandas is a victory for conservation and definitely one to celebrate,” WWF wildlife conservation senior vice president Ginette Hemley said. Hemley credited efforts by the government for the increase. The survey shows 1,246 wild giant pandas live within nature reserves. There are 67 panda reserves in the nation, an increase of 27 since the last survey. However, the survey also points to economic development as a main threat to the rare animal. It says 319 hydropower stations and 1,339km of roads have been built in the giant pandas’ habitat.
INDONESIA
Australia journalist deported
An Australian journalist has been deported from the nation for reporting without a proper visa as she covered two Australian drug traffickers on death row, an immigration official said yesterday. Daily Mail reporter Candace Sutton was taken in for questioning by immigration officials on Wednesday as she interviewed a relative of one of the Australian convicts in the coastal town of Cilacap. The town is close to a prison island where the traffickers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan are to be put to death by firing squad, in a ruling that has drawn fierce protest from Canberra. “We have deported last night the journalist back to Australia with Qantas,” immigration official Yan Wely Wiguna told reporters. The immigration department said earlier that Sutton “failed to show a journalist visa” and had violated immigration laws by working on a tourist visa that she bought on arrival in Indonesia.
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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