MALAYSIA
Helicopter debris found
Search crews yesterday found suspected debris from a helicopter that disappeared with six people on board, including a deputy minister and a member of parliament, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said. Search teams recovered a rotor blade, a floatation device, part of a wall panel, a door and a seat early yesterday on the Borneo island of Sarawak, near where the helicopter is believed to have crashed, Razak said. “We are using all our assets to find the six passengers,” he said. Najib added that rescuers were searching for the main body of the helicopter and said the debris was found close to Batang Lupar, one of the widest rivers on Borneo. The Eurocopter AS350 was ferrying Deputy Minister Noriah Kasnon, her husband Asmuni Abdullah and parliament member Wan Mohammad Khair-il Anuar Wan Ahmad from the state’s interior to the state capital Kuching when it went missing on Thursday.
JAPAN
Anti-LGBT rhetoric cited
The country’s schools are filled with “hateful” comments about gay and transgender people, including from teachers, which aggravates bullying and drives some students into depression, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released yesterday. “Hateful anti-LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender} rhetoric is nearly ubiquitous in Japanese schools, driving LGBT students into silence, self-loathing, and in some cases, self-harm,” the group said. The study was based on interviews with students from the LGBT community, and also teachers, who HRW said were often a key part of the problem. “The information vacuum combined with pervasive hateful comments from students and teachers alike means sexual and gender minority children in Japan sometimes first struggle with their identities with shame and disgust,” it said.
PHILIPPINES
Controversies brushed off
Presidential favorite Rodrigo Duterte has brushed off controversies over an alleged secret fortune and a rape joke to keep a huge lead going into the final days of the election campaign, a pollster said yesterday. Duterte has faced a barrage of last-minute attacks ahead of Monday’s election over allegations he hid millions of dollars in undisclosed bank accounts, while his critics have repeatedly warned he is a dictator in the making. A self-confessed serial adulterer, the 71-year-old also generated outrage last month when he joked at a campaign rally that he had wanted to rape a “beautiful” Australian missionary who was sexually assaulted and murdered in a 1989 Philippine prison riot. As with other controversies — which included calling the pope a “son of a whore” — none appears to have impacted his popularity, according to a Social Weather Stations survey released yesterday.
UNITED STATES
Yearbook exposure dropped
Authorities in Arizona have dropped 70 charges against a high school student who exposed himself in a football team photograph published in the school’s yearbook, police said on Thursday. “At this time, all parties involved no longer desire prosecution and the case will be closed,” said detective Steve Berry, a spokesman for the Mesa police department. Hunter Osborn, 19, a student at Red Mountain High School in the Phoenix-area town of Mesa, was arrested at the weekend and charged with 69 counts of indecent exposure and one felony charge of furnishing harmful items to minors. The number of counts corresponded to the number of people present when the picture was taken. Osborn, who was 18 at the time, told police that he exposed his penis as a prank after being dared by a fellow football player on the team. School officials alerted police last week after discovering the offending picture, which made it into 3,400 copies of the yearbook, as well as the football program.
MEXICO
Pollution alert discontinued
Mexico City has discontinued a pollution alert after three days of persistently high smog levels and was to allow more cars on the streets yesterday. Smog remained at almost 1.3 times acceptable limits on Thursday, but authorities said winds were expected to pick up and help clean the air. During the three-day alert, 40 percent of cars were ordered off the street each day. Under a rule in effect through June, one-fifth of the city’s vehicles normally must stay at home on a weekday, with the day determined by license plate numbers.
UNITED NATIONS
Pusic requests meeting
Former Croation minister of foreign affairs Vesna Pusic, who is campaigning to be the next secretary-general of the UN, said she has asked to meet members of the UN Security Council who will make the final decision. Pusic said she requested the meeting to hear the “concerns and questions” of council members and have its 15 members evaluate her candidacy. She spoke late on Wednesday by telephone from Jordan, where she was attending an international conference of women lawmakers. Another candidate, Moldovan Minister of Foreign Affairs Natalia Gherman, also asked to meet the council, said a council diplomat on condition of anonymity because the council has not yet announced the requests. The diplomat said the council is likely to meet privately with the candidates for an hour.
UNITED STATES
Trump, Stones feud
It seems Donald Trump believes you can always get what you want. The US Republican presumptive presidential nominee appears to have dismissed a demand by the The Rolling Stones that he stop using the band’s songs during his campaign events. “You know, we use so many songs,” Trump told CNBC. “We have the rights to use them. I always buy the rights.” Trump has frequently used hits by The Rolling Stones to fire up supporters at campaign events, but the band have joined a growing number of musicians who have expressed anger at his use of their music. “The Rolling Stones have never given permission to the Trump campaign to use their songs and have requested that they cease all use immediately,” the group said in a statement on Wednesday. However, Trump doubled down on The Rolling Stones’ music as he wrapped up a rally in Charleston, West Virginia, on Thursday, playing Start Me Up and You Can’t Always Get What You Want.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in