EGYPT
NDP building coming down
The government on Sunday began demolishing the Cairo building that had housed the headquarters of former president Hosni Mubarak’s political party, a symbol of decades of iron-fisted rule. The burnt-out National Democratic Party (NDP) building, a concrete tower block that looms over the Nile River, was gutted during the uprising against Mubarak’s rule in 2011. Successive governments had discussed plans to knock down the building since the NDP was dissolved in April of that year. Some activists who took part in the anti-Mubarek protests wanted the building preserved as a monument to the uprising. Rageb Hafiz, one of the contractors working on the demolition project, said it would take about three months to complete.
YEMEN
Coalition bombs sites
Warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition yesterday launched air strikes against Houthi militia positions in the north, center and south of the country, residents said. Saudi planes and artillery bombed the Iran-allied group’s northern stronghold province of Saada and air strikes hit suburbs of the southern port of Aden. Air strikes pounded military positions aligned with the Houthis in the capital, Sana’a, on Sunday, and residents reported the sounds of constant explosions and anti-aircraft fire continuing into yesterday. Warplanes also dropped bombs on groups of Houthi fighters on the outskirts of Aden.
SPAIN
Coked-up pineapples found
Police seized 200kg of cocaine found inside hollowed-out pineapples that arrived by ship from Central America, the Ministry of the Interior said on Sunday. The drug-stuffed fruit was found among 10 shipping containers filled with pineapples that arrived in port of Algeciras, one of Europe’s largest ports, the ministry said in a statement. “Among the thousands of fresh pineapples inside the containers, they found fruit that had been hollowed out and stuffed with drugs and then covered with a yellow wax that simulated the color of pineapple pulp,” the statement said. The pineapples arrived from an undisclosed country in Central America and were destined for a company in Madrid and another in Sant Quirze del Valles, near Barcelona. Police detained three people as part of their investigations.
GERMANY
Car toll plan questioned
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says the EU has “significant doubts” as to whether Berlin’s plan for a highway car toll to raise money from foreign drivers complies with EU law. Juncker said in an interview with daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung published yesterday that the commission will have to open formal proceedings to examine the issue. Parliament last month approved the toll plan, a much-criticized pet project of the smallest party in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition. The plan calls for all road users to pay the toll starting next year, but local car owners are to be compensated by an equivalent cut in a separate car tax. The transport minister has said it will raise 500 million euros (US$550 million) annually.
UNITED STATES
Nonagenarian claims title
A 92-year-old grandmother has become the oldest woman to finish a marathon after crossing the finish line of a San Diego race on Sunday, organizers said. A smiling Harriette Thompson, aged 92 years and 65 days, was cheered by dozens of onlookers as she completed the event in seven hours, 24 minutes and 36 seconds.
JAPAN
Abe sorry for heckling
A legislative session opened yesterday with an apology from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over his heckling. Abe apologized for yelling at an opposition lawmaker during her question last week about defense legislation. “I apologize once again over my remark and I will humbly deal with the situation from now on,” Abe said at the lower house committee on the peace and security legislation. Abe intervened last week when Democratic Party of Japan member Kiyomi Tsujimoto was taking several minutes to ask if the legislation could increase the risk of casualties for Japanese defense troops. “Come on, just ask a question!” Abe heckled from his seat, temporarily stalling the session as Tsujimoto protested. Abe said her long question was taking away from his time to respond, then reluctantly apologized, but faced further criticism from both opposition and ruling parties. On Wednesday last week, the day before his outburst, Abe slammed heckling from opposition lawmakers: “Please stop obstructing the discussion. Did you not learn that at school?”
SOUTH KOREA
Allies stage naval drill
South Korea and the US began a major antisubmarine drill yesterday, weeks after North Korea said it had successfully tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile. The three-day exercise, aimed at tackling provocations by North Korean submarines, is being conducted off the southern island of Jeju, the Ministry of National Defense said. “This is the largest joint antisubmarine exercise the allies have ever staged, in terms of its scale and the number of vessels involved,” a ministry spokesman told reporters. The exercise involves more than 10 ships, including a South Korean Aegis destroyer, as well as submarines, surveillance aircraft and helicopters, he said.
JAPAN
Corpse in luggage at station
The corpse of a woman that had been stuffed in a suitcase and left in a locker at one of the world’s busiest train stations went undiscovered for a month, Japanese police said yesterday. The suitcase was abandoned in a locker at Tokyo Station in late April, but removed to the left-luggage storage room after remaining uncollected, media outlets reported. When a month had elapsed without its being claimed, the storage company opened it. “There was an abnormal odor when we opened the suitcase,” a spokesman told reporters. “Then we saw hair.” The decomposing body belonged to a woman aged from about 70 to 90, who was about 1.4m tall, police said. She had been folded into the suitcase, which measured 70cm by 50cm, local media reported.
JAPAN
Massive kite hits crowd
A kite weighing three-quarters of a tonne crashed into a crowd of spectators this weekend, hurting four people, including an elderly man, an official said yesterday. The bamboo-framed kite measuring 13m by 12m and weighing 700kg was being flown by a big group of people at a park in Higashiomi, central Japan, for the annual “Big Kite” festival on Sunday. It was at a height of about 200m when it plunged into the crowd, a Higashiomi city official said. The huge kite hit and seriously injured a 73-year-old man, who remained unconscious in a hospital yesterday, the official said. A seven-year-old boy was also injured. Police have launched an investigation into the case on suspicion of professional negligence, local media reported.
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