RUSSIA
Police stop Moscow attack
Police have arrested a group of people they said were planning a terror attack on Moscow, the country’s anti-terrorism committee said on Sunday, without giving details about the group’s motives. “After a series of investigations by the security services, a group of individuals was arrested in the west of Moscow suspected of planning a terrorist attack on the capital,” the committee was quoted by local media as saying. Investigators found about 4kg of homemade explosives in the suspects’ apartment, the official TASS news agency reported. More than 120 people were evacuated from the building and the explosives were defused. Authorities did not give any details about the number of people arrested or their motives.
MOLDOVA
Protesters halt traffic
Hundreds of pro-Russian protesters blocked the main street of the capital, Chisinau, during the morning rush hour yesterday, demanding the resignation of the government. About 400 protesters led by pro-Moscow Our Party leader Renato Usatii parked dozens of cars on Stephen the Great Boulevard before dawn, bringing traffic to a halt. Protests began on Sept. 6 when tens of thousands of protesters demanded a probe into up to US$1.5 billion that went missing from three local banks before parliamentary elections in November last year. Since then, protesters have erected tents in a pedestrian square and staged weekend protests.
HONDURAS
Bank faces liquidation
The nation’s banking regulator said it is to take control of Banco Continental and force its liquidation after the lender was accused by US authorities of laundering the proceeds of drug money for more than a decade. The US Department of the Treasury last week classified seven businesses linked to several members of a prominent local family, including Grupo Continental and its Banco Continental unit, as “specially designated narcotics traffickers,” which allows for the freezing of assets under US control. Grupo Continental, headed by prominent banker and politician Jaime Rosenthal along with his son, Yani, are accused of leading one of Central America’s most significant money laundering networks.
UNITED STATES
Hendrix estate wants guitar
The estate of Jimi Hendrix is suing a Tucson man for a guitar once owned by the legendary guitarist. The Arizona Daily Star on Sunday reported that Experience Hendrix LLC, the company that runs Hendrix’s estate, wants a Pima County Superior Court judge to order the guitar returned. According to the Oct. 2 complaint, Harvey Moltz, owner of Rainbow Guitars, is not the rightful owner of the Acoustic Black Widow guitar. Estate attorney Ed McPherson said that the guitar is valued at between US$750,000 and US$1 million. The lawsuit is also seeking damages. Moltz said he purchased the guitar in June last year from someone who bought it from Sheldon Reynolds, ex-husband of Hendrix’s adopted sister, Janie Hendrix. McPherson said Reynolds, a former member of Earth, Wind & Fire, stole it. “The guitar is priceless to our family,” Janie Hendrix said in an e-mail. “It is one of the few guitars that came home after Jimi passed away. We just want our guitar returned safely and back where it belongs.”
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