TURKEY
Curfew lifted in Kaynartepe
Local authorities yesterday lifted a curfew imposed to fight Kurdish militants in an area in southeast Diyarbakir, but security was tight as Kurds celebrated the Newroz spring festival. The nation is on heightened alert after a series of bombings that have killed more than 80 people, including a suicide bombing in Istanbul on Saturday that killed three Israelis and an Iranian. The Ministry of the Interior said that a Turkish member of the Islamic State militant group was responsible for that bombing. Kurdish militants have also carried out bomb attacks. The Baglar District governor’s office in Diyarbakir said the six-day-old curfew in the Kaynartepe neighborhood was being lifted from 6am.
THAILAND
Outage strands hundreds
About 750 passengers were stranded on Bangkok’s Airport Rail Link due to a power outage during yesterday’s morning rush hour, prompting several people to walk along the train’s overhead tracks to the next station. Bangkok’s Erawan medical emergency center said seven people fainted on the train while waiting more than two hours for operations to resume. The train, which links the Thai capital to the main international airport, stalled between stations at 7:50am and passengers were transferred to another train shortly after 10am, the rail link said in a statement. It said some passengers had opened emergency doors and “about 20 passengers” walked to the next station along the overhead tracks.
NEW ZEALAND
Key settles defamation suit
Prime Minister John Key yesterday settled a defamation case brought by a journalist after acknowledging that comments he made about the man caused him professional and personal harm. Key said in a statement that he now accepts that freelance cameraman Bradley Ambrose did not deliberately record a private conversation Key had with political ally John Banks days before the 2011 national elections. Key told a news conference that the amount of the settlement was confidential, but that it was less than the legal costs would amount to in a court case. Ambrose had been seeking NZ$1.25 million (US$848,081) in damages. Key said the settlement money would come from either the taxpayer-funded parliamentary budget or the National Party, which he leads. Ambrose said it was time to move on, adding that he had been advised against commenting further.
KAZAKHSTAN
Ruling party wins landslide
President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan Party won a landslide in Sunday’s snap parliamentary election by capturing 82 percent of the vote, preliminary results announced yesterday showed. The Central Election Commission said two other parties, the Communists and Ak Zhol, had passed the 7 percent threshold needed to win seats, meaning that the lower house would include the same three parties as before. Three other parties, the Social Democrats, Birlik (Unity) and Auyl (Village), won less than 7 percent each. The preliminary results were almost identical to exit poll figures announced earlier yesterday. Nazarbayev, 75, congratulated his party at a “victors’ forum” event in Astana, where he walked triumphantly to the stage as thousands of youths dressed in his party’s blue and yellow colors chanted: “Nursultan! Nur Otan!”
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