MYANMAR
Police block student protest
Truckloads of police yesterday prevented hundreds of student protesters from continuing their march from Mandalay to Yangon to push for educational reform. Students have been marching since January, demanding changes to a recently passed education law that they say inhibits academic freedom. The demonstrators had spent the past 10 days in Letpadan, about 145km north of Yangon, and were planning to resume their rally yesterday. However, they woke up to find more than a dozen police vehicles, including a water cannon truck, parked outside the monastery where they were staying. The government warned the students last week that if they continued with the protest, action would be taken “to maintain law and order, security and tranquility.”
JAPAN
Tokyo shrugs off Korean call
The government yesterday shrugged off renewed calls from South Korean President Park Geun-hye to apologize to former wartime sex slaves, saying Tokyo hoped Seoul would change its views. “We have explained our position many times. We want to continue our diplomatic efforts so that our view will be understood,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said. The comment came in reaction to Park’s weekend call for Japan to resolve issues surrounding women being pressed into sexually serving Japanese troops during World War II. Japan has issued formal apologies over their suffering and offered financial compensation to victims via a non-government group, but Seoul maintains it is not contrite enough.
NORTH KOREA
Tourist ban may be lifted
Pyongyang is set to lift a four-month ban on foreign tourism imposed over concerns of the spread of the Ebola virus, a Beijing-based tour group said yesterday. Kory Tours said it had been contacted by the National Tourism Administration in Pyongyang with news that there was “some movement” over the travel ban. “We were told we should expect confirmation later today with details of the country’s plan for reopening the border,” the agency said in a statement. The nation closed its borders to foreign tourists in October last year, and strictly enforced a 21-day quarantine period on anyone entering the country, including foreign diplomats.
AUSTRALIA
Mosul on off-limits list
The government yesterday said the Iraqi city of Mosul, which is held by the Islamic State group, is now off-limits. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Mosul had been declared a so-called designated area under a section of the Criminal Code created in October last year to deter foreign fighters. That means that it is an offense punishable by 10 years in prison to enter the district or to remain in it without a legitimate purpose. Al-Raquan Province became the first designated area under the law in December last year.
NEPAL
Canadian jailed for abuse
A Canadian tourist with several previous child sex convictions has been sentenced to seven years in prison for sexually abusing a 15-year-old disabled boy, the Lalitpur district court said yesterday. Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh, 71, from Nova Scotia, was also ordered to pay US$10,000 to the victim. MacIntosh arrived in Kathmandu on a tourist visa in August last year, and was a frequent visitor to the children’s shelter where the boy lived. He was detained in December last year after the victim filed a complaint with police.
URUGUAY
Tabare Vazquez takes office
One leftist leader replaced another on Sunday, a change seemingly marked more by style than differences in policy as the elegant President Tabare Vazquez took over from the famously casual Jose Mujica, who formally left office in rubber-soled brown shoes. Vazquez, a 75-year-old oncologist who was president from 2005 to 2010, has said he would allow the government to proceed with one of Mujica’s most controversial initiatives, the world’s first state-run marijuana marketplace, though he said he would change it if it has negative results. The new president urged the public to work together to improve public education, health and housing, and he decried the violence haunting the world beyond.
BRAZIL
Trucker protest turns violent
The government dispatched extra police on Sunday to quell a strike by truckers opposing rising fuel and freight costs, after demonstrations turned violent. Nearing its second week, the strike has hit 11 states. The regions of Rio Grande do Sul, Parana and Santa Catarina have been hit especially hard. The extra police are tasked with enforcing a court order passed last week demanding an end to the strike. On Wednesday last week, the government indicated it would freeze diesel prices for six months in response to strikers’ demands.
UNITED KINGDOM
Brooks moves to New York
Rebekah Brooks is close to being rehired by Rupert Murdoch in a permanent position heading up his search for new online investments. Brooks, who was cleared of being involved in a phone-hacking plot last summer, has taken an apartment in New York and moved from Oxfordshire with her husband Charlie and their daughter, Scarlett. It is understood her husband, who was also acquitted of charges linked to Brooks’ arrest, is hoping to relaunch his career in the horse racing business in the US. Brooks was first spotted in Murdoch’s New York headquarters in October last year and in January was spotted with a large Murdoch delegation at the recent Consumer Electronics Show tech trade fair in Las Vegas. One source said that a deal had yet to be signed, but it was imminent.
SPACE
Spacewalk work complete
Spacewalking astronauts successfully completed a three-day cable job outside the International Space Station on Sunday, routing more than 100m of power and data lines for new crew capsules commissioned by NASA. It was the third spacewalk in just over a week for US astronauts Terry Virts and Butch Wilmore, and the quickest succession of spacewalks since NASA’s former shuttle days. Their three outings spanned 19 hours. The advance work was needed for the manned spacecraft under development by Boeing and SpaceX.
UNITED STATES
Officials probe bacteria leak
Federal officials in Louisiana are investigating how dangerous and often deadly bacteria got out of a high-security research facility, USA Today reported on Sunday. Authorities said there was no risk to the public, although the extent of the contamination remains unknown after the safety breach at the Tulane National Primate Research Center. The bacterium in question is called Burkholderia pseudomallei. It is classified as a potential bioterror agent. Officials say the pathogen has not been detected at the facility’s outdoor grounds, although four rhesus monkeys kept in outdoor pens became sick, and two were euthanized.
MYANMAR
Police block student protest
Truckloads of police yesterday prevented hundreds of student protesters from continuing their march from Mandalay to Yangon to push for educational reform. Students have been marching since January, demanding changes to a recently passed education law that they say inhibits academic freedom. The demonstrators had spent the past 10 days in Letpadan, about 145km north of Yangon, and were planning to resume their rally yesterday. However, they woke up to find more than a dozen police vehicles, including a water cannon truck, parked outside the monastery where they were staying. The government warned the students last week that if they continued with the protest, action would be taken “to maintain law and order, security and tranquility.”
JAPAN
Tokyo shrugs off Korean call
The government yesterday shrugged off renewed calls from South Korean President Park Geun-hye to apologize to former wartime sex slaves, saying Tokyo hoped Seoul would change its views. “We have explained our position many times. We want to continue our diplomatic efforts so that our view will be understood,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said. The comment came in reaction to Park’s weekend call for Japan to resolve issues surrounding women being pressed into sexually serving Japanese troops during World War II. Japan has issued formal apologies over their suffering and offered financial compensation to victims via a non-government group, but Seoul maintains it is not contrite enough.
NORTH KOREA
Tourist ban may be lifted
Pyongyang is set to lift a four-month ban on foreign tourism imposed over concerns of the spread of the Ebola virus, a Beijing-based tour group said yesterday. Kory Tours said it had been contacted by the National Tourism Administration in Pyongyang with news that there was “some movement” over the travel ban. “We were told we should expect confirmation later today with details of the country’s plan for reopening the border,” the agency said in a statement. The nation closed its borders to foreign tourists in October last year, and strictly enforced a 21-day quarantine period on anyone entering the country, including foreign diplomats.
AUSTRALIA
Mosul on off-limits list
The government yesterday said the Iraqi city of Mosul, which is held by the Islamic State group, is now off-limits. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Mosul had been declared a so-called designated area under a section of the Criminal Code created in October last year to deter foreign fighters. That means that it is an offense punishable by 10 years in prison to enter the district or to remain in it without a legitimate purpose. Al-Raquan Province became the first designated area under the law in December last year.
NEPAL
Canadian jailed for abuse
A Canadian tourist with several previous child sex convictions has been sentenced to seven years in prison for sexually abusing a 15-year-old disabled boy, the Lalitpur district court said yesterday. Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh, 71, from Nova Scotia, was also ordered to pay US$10,000 to the victim. MacIntosh arrived in Kathmandu on a tourist visa in August last year, and was a frequent visitor to the children’s shelter where the boy lived. He was detained in December last year after the victim filed a complaint with police.
URUGUAY
Tabare Vazquez takes office
One leftist leader replaced another on Sunday, a change seemingly marked more by style than differences in policy as the elegant President Tabare Vazquez took over from the famously casual Jose Mujica, who formally left office in rubber-soled brown shoes. Vazquez, a 75-year-old oncologist who was president from 2005 to 2010, has said he would allow the government to proceed with one of Mujica’s most controversial initiatives, the world’s first state-run marijuana marketplace, though he said he would change it if it has negative results. The new president urged the public to work together to improve public education, health and housing, and he decried the violence haunting the world beyond.
BRAZIL
Trucker protest turns violent
The government dispatched extra police on Sunday to quell a strike by truckers opposing rising fuel and freight costs, after demonstrations turned violent. Nearing its second week, the strike has hit 11 states. The regions of Rio Grande do Sul, Parana and Santa Catarina have been hit especially hard. The extra police are tasked with enforcing a court order passed last week demanding an end to the strike. On Wednesday last week, the government indicated it would freeze diesel prices for six months in response to strikers’ demands.
UNITED KINGDOM
Brooks moves to New York
Rebekah Brooks is close to being rehired by Rupert Murdoch in a permanent position heading up his search for new online investments. Brooks, who was cleared of being involved in a phone-hacking plot last summer, has taken an apartment in New York and moved from Oxfordshire with her husband Charlie and their daughter, Scarlett. It is understood her husband, who was also acquitted of charges linked to Brooks’ arrest, is hoping to relaunch his career in the horse racing business in the US. Brooks was first spotted in Murdoch’s New York headquarters in October last year and in January was spotted with a large Murdoch delegation at the recent Consumer Electronics Show tech trade fair in Las Vegas. One source said that a deal had yet to be signed, but it was imminent.
SPACE
Spacewalk work complete
Spacewalking astronauts successfully completed a three-day cable job outside the International Space Station on Sunday, routing more than 100m of power and data lines for new crew capsules commissioned by NASA. It was the third spacewalk in just over a week for US astronauts Terry Virts and Butch Wilmore, and the quickest succession of spacewalks since NASA’s former shuttle days. Their three outings spanned 19 hours. The advance work was needed for the manned spacecraft under development by Boeing and SpaceX.
UNITED STATES
Officials probe bacteria leak
Federal officials in Louisiana are investigating how dangerous and often deadly bacteria got out of a high-security research facility, USA Today reported on Sunday. Authorities said there was no risk to the public, although the extent of the contamination remains unknown after the safety breach at the Tulane National Primate Research Center. The bacterium in question is called Burkholderia pseudomallei. It is classified as a potential bioterror agent. Officials say the pathogen has not been detected at the facility’s outdoor grounds, although four rhesus monkeys kept in outdoor pens became sick, and two were euthanized.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of