AFGHANISTAN
Most see gloomy future: poll
A nationwide survey has found people increasingly uncertain about their future, less confident in the government and more pessimistic than before on issues such as security, corruption and rising unemployment. The findings by the San Francisco-based Asia Foundation came in its annual survey, released in Kabul yesterday. The survey found that 29.3 percent of people said they believe the country is moving in the right direction. That was down from 36.7 percent last year and the lowest level since the foundation started the surveys in 2004. It also revealed people were more dissatisfied with the economy this year. The foundation polled 12,658 men and women in interviews conducted between Aug. 31 and Oct. 1 in all 34 provinces. The poll has a 1.6 percent margin of error.
AUSTRALIA
Teen jailed over terror plot
A teenager who was planning to set off a homemade bomb similar to the one used in the Boston Marathon bombings was yesterday sentenced to seven years in prison. Victoria Supreme Court Justice Lex Lasry sentenced the 18-year-old over the foiled plot to set off the device in the nation’s second-largest city, Melbourne. The teen had previously pleaded guilty to obtaining documents relating to an improvised explosive device and partially constructing the device in preparation for a terror act. He had faced a maximum sentence of life in prison. The teen cannot be named, because he was a juvenile at the time of the crime. Police last year raided his home and found a pressure cooker, boxes of screws he planned to use as shrapnel and a guide on how to make a bomb out of a pressure cooker.
AUSTRALIA
One ship left seeking MH370
Officials said the sea bed search for a missing Malaysian airliner has been left to a single ship, with a Chinese vessel heading home to Shanghai. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau yesterday said in a statement that a Dutch survey ship would finish the search of the southern Indian Ocean for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 alone after resupplying at the port of Fremantle. The statement said a Chinese ship finished searching last weekend and was heading back to Fremantle to drop off equipment before returning to its home port of Shanghai. The Chinese ship in February joined three search vessels operated by the Dutch underwater survey company Fugro in the hunt for the Boeing 777 that authorities say crashed with 239 people aboard in 2014.
INDIA
Train crash kills at least two
A train ran off the tracks in eastern West Bengal, killing at least two people and injuring six, Indian Railways said yesterday, reviving concerns about safety just weeks after a crash that killed about 150 people. The state-run rail system, the world’s fourth-largest and a lifeline for millions of poorer travelers, has struggled under growing demand and a lack of investment in upgrades. The train, traveling from the eastern city of Patna to the northeastern city of Guwahati, left the tracks in the district of Alipurduar late on Tuesday, spokesman Anil Saxena said. “A full investigation will take place,” Saxena told reporters. The nation’s deadliest rail crash in years on Nov. 20 prompted a request from the firm to the Ministry of Finance for about US$17.5 billion to establish a dedicated safety fund, in addition to record investment pledged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to modernize the network.
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