CHINA
Haima prompts evacuation
More than 50,000 people in the nation’s south were evacuated in the path of Typhoon Haima, which killed at least 13 people in the Philippines before moving northward. No deaths had been reported yesterday from the storm in China. Local authorities and state media said residents in the cities of Shanwei and Shantou in Guangdong Province were forced to move to safer ground as the storm hit on Friday.
RUSSIA
Helicopter crash kills 19
At least 19 people were killed when a helicopter crashed in northwestern Siberia, the Investigative Committee said yesterday. Investigators said in a statement that an Mi-8 helicopter carrying 22 people had crashed on Friday night outside the city of Novy Urengoy and that “19 people have died from multiple injuries at the scene, according to preliminary data.” The helicopter was flying from the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk to the town of Urengoy in Yamalo-Nenetsky when it crashed on Friday between 2pm and 3pm GMT, investigators said. Emergency workers were dispatched to the scene and pulled three people from the wreckage, the ministry said. The Investigative Committee said that the crash could have been caused by a violation of flight safety regulations, a mechanical problem or difficult weather conditions.
CAMEROON
Derailment claims 55 lives
Fifty-five people were killed and almost 600 injured when a packed passenger train derailed on Friday, leaving debris strewn across nearby tracks as carriages swung off the rails. The train, traveling from the capital, Yaounde, to the economic hub of Douala, was crammed with people due to road traffic disruption between the two cities and came off the tracks just before reaching the central city of Eseka, Minister of Transportation Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o said. The minister, via state broadcaster CRTV, said 55 people had been confirmed dead, while 575 were injured in the incident, updating an earlier toll. “The cause of the accident is not yet clear,” he said.
UNITED STATES
N Korea ‘illegitimate’: Kerry
Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday described North Korea’s government as “an illegal and illegitimate regime.” Kerry used the unusually tough language as he met Kuwaiti Minister of Foreign Affairs Sabah al-Khalid Al Sabah and credited the Gulf nation for its efforts in countering the North’s proliferation activities. Kerry said Kuwait has “recently taken steps to curb flights and to make sure that revenue from workers are not sustaining an illegal and illegitimate regime in North Korea.” State Department spokesman John Kirby said later that Kerry’s comments did not signal a policy change.
UNITED STATES
City sued in doughnut case
A Florida man arrested last year after police mistook doughnut glaze in his car for meth is suing the city of Orlando and a drug-testing kit company. The Orlando Sentinel reported that Daniel Rushing filed a lawsuit last week, claiming negligence by the city and the kit’s manufacturer. Rushing was arrested on drug charges in December last year when Orlando police officers spotted four tiny flakes of glaze on his floorboard and thought they were pieces of crystal methamphetamine. Rushing told officers it was likely sugar from Krispy Kreme doughnuts he had eaten, but two roadside drug tests were positive for the illegal substance. A state crime lab test cleared Rushing several weeks later and charges were dropped.
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