UNITED STATES
Web freedom waning: report
Global online freedom declined for a fifth consecutive year as more governments stepped up electronic surveillance and clamped down on dissidents using blogs or social media, a survey showed yesterday. The annual report by non-government watchdog Freedom House said the setbacks were especially noticeable in the Middle East, reversing gains seen in the Arab Spring. Freedom House found declines in online freedom of expression in 32 of the 65 countries assessed since June last year, with “notable declines” in Libya, France and Ukraine. The researchers found 61 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where criticism of the government, military or ruling family has been subject to censorship, while 58 percent live in countries where bloggers or others were jailed for sharing content online on political, social and religious issues, according to the Freedom on the Net 2015 report.
UNITED STATES
Afghan sex abuse probed
US defense officials on Tuesday said they were opening an investigation into allegations of child sex abuse by Afghan security forces and reports that US personnel deliberately overlooked it. The probe by the Pentagon’s inspector general comes after the New York Times last month reported that US troops in Afghanistan had been instructed by their superiors to overlook cases of Afghan police or commanders sexually abusing teenage boys, even if it took place on military bases.
IVORY COAST
Ouattara re-elected
Alassane Ouattara was re-elected as president of Ivory Coast, official results showed yesterday, in a vote seen as key to cementing peace in the west African country after years of violence and upheaval. The 73-year-old won a second term outright by garnering almost 84 percent of ballots in the first round of polls on Sunday, when more than half of voters turned out, despite calls for a boycott by some opposition candidates.
CHINA
Shanghai denied air routes
Nearly half of the flights leaving the main international airport of the commercial hub, Shanghai, were delayed in August, regulators said, punishing the facility by denying it new routes. Air travel in the world’s most populous country has boomed as incomes rise, but the industry scores poorly for customer satisfaction and constant flight delays top the list of complaints. The phenomenon is often blamed on the military, which controls most of the skies over the country. Only 51.16 percent of departures from Shanghai Pudong airport left on time in August, according to figures from the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
VATICAN CITY
‘Nostra Aetate’ remembered
It was credited with revolutionizing Catholic relations with Judaism: Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the Church’s “Nostra Aetate” declaration that challenged religious prejudices and urged bridge-building with other faiths. A special papal audience for interfaith relations was to be celebrated in Saint Peter’s Square to remember the moment on Oct. 28, 1965, when former pope Paul VI adopted what was a ground-breaking declaration lambasting anti-Semitism in particular. The Nostra Aetate was drawn up at the end of the Second Vatican Council and repudiates the centuries-old charge that all Jews should be held responsible for the death of Jesus.
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