POLAND
Presidential polls held
The public are voting in the final round of a cliffhanger presidential election race between conservative President Bronislaw Komrowski and an even more conservative challenger. In his five years in office, the 62-year-old Komorowski has been popular and was easily expected to win re-election. However, he narrowly lost in the first round of voting to Andrzej Duda, a little-known 43-year-old lawyer and member of the European Parliament with the Law and Justice Party who waged an energetic campaign. Polls in recent days have shown today’s race as being too close to call. The first round had a large protest vote for a rock star.
UNITED STATES
Pipeline blame game begins
The operator of the oil pipeline that spilled thousands of liters of crude oil on the California coast said it had a safe shutdown process in place. Plains All American Pipeline’s safety director Patrick Hodgins said on Saturday that its system of having operators remotely shut down the line was safer than having a computer do it automatically. Hodgins was responding to reports that the pipeline was the only one in the county not required to have an automatic shut-off valve. A county official said the company that originally owned the pipeline skirted the requirement by successfully suing the county in the late 1980s. It is not clear if such a device would have prevented up to 397,000 liters of oil spilling onto the shore and beaches, killing some wildlife and polluting the sea.
CANADA
Journalist accused of lying
A prominent journalist was suspended on Saturday from several roles in Canada’s French-speaking media after allegations that he made up or embellished reports from conflict zones over the past 20 years. Groupe Media, which owns the TVA television network, said it was taking foreign correspondent Francois Bugingo, 41, off the air after the allegations surfaced earlier in the day. In its Saturday edition, La Presse newspaper published a detailed investigation of Bugingo’s reports in Bosnia, Libya and Somalia, alleging they were fabricated. According to La Presse, Congo-born Bugingo had acknowledged in a recent interview that he had never been to Misrata in Libya, contrary to reports he had filed. TVA said it was taking the allegations seriously and had suspended Bugingo while it looks into the claims. Bugingo said on Facebook he was “stunned” by the revelations in La Presse and maintained that the information he reported was “always verified and solid.” The Professional Federation of Quebec Journalists, of which Bugingo is a member, said that the claims against him are likely to “tarnish the credibility of the journalistic profession.”
UNITED STATES
Woman turns 116
Jeralean Talley of Inkster, Michigan, celebrated her latest birthday on Saturday. She does not have a formula for longevity. “There’s nothing I can do about it,” she told the Detroit Free Press. The Gerontology Research Group considers Talley to be the oldest person in the world, followed by Susannah Jones of New York State, who turns 116 in July. Talley bowled until she was 104 and still likes to catch fish. A daughter, Thelma Holloway, told the Free Press that Talley still has a sharp mind. She was born in Montrose, Georgia, in 1899 and moved to Michigan in the 1930s. Talley’s husband died at age 95.
CHINA
Mudslides, floods kill 52
Heavy rain which caused mudslides and flooding in the center and south of the nation has left at least 52 people dead and another 13 missing, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, including two schoolchildren aboard a bus carrying more than twice its authorized passenger load that plunged into a pond. Torrential rain — the worst in 40 years in some parts of the country — has hit at least six provinces, according to state media. However, the National Meteorological Center said the downpour would start to weaken yesterday. Among the dead were 16 killed in the collapse of a nine-story building in Guiyang following a landslide. Eight died when a bus skidded into a guardrail and overturned in Hunan Province. The Guangxi regional government said 21 other kindergarten students were sent to hospitals in the bus accident on Friday. The bus was licensed to carry 11 people, but had 26 on board.
JAPAN
Man flushed wife’s ashes
A man turned himself in to authorities after trying to flush the ashes of his “hated” dead wife down a supermarket toilet, reports and police said yesterday. The 68-year-old man told police he dumped his wife’s ashes into the toilet at a Tokyo supermarket immediately after she was cremated last month. Police were alerted after the ashes and bone fragments, including a human chin, were discovered, but were at a loss to explain them until the man handed himself in, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. He had felt growing resentment toward his spouse over the years of their unhappy marriage, according to the daily. “I had hatred mounting against her,” the man, whose name was not disclosed, was quoted as saying. “Life was such a pain before she died.”
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