CAMBODIA
Seven girls drown in lake
Seven girls aged between six and 13 years old, drowned yesterday morning when their small wooden boat capsized in a lake in the seaside town of Sihanoukville, police said. The girls were among nine local children enjoying a rowing excursion, Kampong Som Province police chief Chuon Narin said. “They often played at the lake and this time they boarded a small wooden boat, but it was unsteady and capsized,” he said. Another girl and a boy were rescued and sent to hospital, Chuon Narin said. It was not clear whether any of the victims were strong swimmers.
BANGLADESH
Militants to hang for murder
Five militants who murdered a Japanese farmer in a drive-by shooting in 2015 were yesterday sentenced to death. The five members of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh were found guilty of murdering Kunio Hoshi in Rangpur in October 2015. Judge Naresh Sarker said the five had murdered Hoshi as part of a “campaign to destabilize the country and smear its image.” Hoshi, 66, was shot dead by a gunman riding on the back of a motorbike on a dirt road outside Rangpur where he was working on a project to grow grass for cattle.
FRANCE
Obama for French president
Posters of former US president Barack Obama have popped up around Paris in what started as a joke by four friends pretending to launch a campaign for Obama ahead of the presidential election. Even though Obama cannot legally run in the two-round April-May election, the jokesters online petition has been signed by more than 40,000 people. The organizers, who came up with idea over beer, said they launched the Web site and began plastering Obama 17 posters around Paris because they were disenchanted with the candidates running in the French election.
BRAZIL
Carnival float collapses
Part of a float has collapsed during Rio de Janeiro’s carnival parade, injuring at least 15 people, doctors at the scene said. The incident, which happened in the early hours yesterday, involved the second float of a popular samba school Unidos da Tijuca. Doctors said that among the 15 injured, two were in serious condition. The parade had to be stopped so the injured could get medical attention. The show was allowed to proceed. On Sunday, a float of samba school Paraiso de Tuiuti crashed and injured at least 20 people, including three reported in serious condition. Following that accident, organizers also decided to proceed with the show.
UNITED STATES
Four killed in plane crash
Four people died and up to five are missing after a small plane crashed into two houses in a residential neighborhood in southern California, authorities said on Monday. The Cessna 310 aircraft crashed “under unknown circumstances” about a 80m northeast of Riverside Municipal Airport, east of Los Angeles, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said. The city’s fire chief Michael Moore told reporters that five people were on the plane, which split apart when it hit two homes that authorities believe both had occupants inside. One survivor, a teenage girl, was ejected from the aircraft and survived with minor injuries. A resident found in one of the burning homes remained in a “very critical” condition as of Monday, Moore said.
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