UNITED STATES
Drinker kills one at party
A man holding a gun in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other on Sunday opened fire on people around a swimming pool in a San Diego, California, apartment complex, killing a woman and injuring eight other people before police shot him dead, media said. The man launched his attack at about 6pm during a birthday celebration in the complex in the University City section, NBC News’ San Diego affiliate reported. One resident, who identified himself as John, told KFMB-TV that he saw the gunman “sitting, drinking a beer in one hand with a gun out in the other” in the pool area. He said he and his wife saw “three people laying on the ground shot,” and one wounded victim trying to crawl to another to give assistance. Two police officers arrived and confronted the gunman, who exchanged gunfire with the officers before he was shot, the witness said. Some of the victims were taken away in cars to hospital before paramedics made it to the scene. The gunman was killed after pointing his weapon at police, San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman told reporters. She did not identify the suspect or mention a possible motive.
VENEZUELA
Maduro gives away favors
President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday hiked wages and handed out hundreds of free homes amid his efforts to counter a strengthening protest movement seeking his removal. On his regular television show, Sundays With Maduro, the president ordered a 60 percent increase in the country’s minimum wage starting yesterday. It was the third pay increase he has ordered this year and the 15th since he became president in 2013. He also announced a special “economic war” bonus to retirees to make up for what he says are attempts by the opposition to sabotage the economy. He also repeated a pledge to hold gubernatorial elections soon, perhaps as early as this year.
CUBA
Castro attends last parade
The government’s traditional Workers’ Day parade yesterday was the last to be overseen by President Raul Castro — and the first without his late brother and revolutionary predecessor, Fidel Castro. The May 1 rally traditionally draws hundreds of thousands of Cubans into Havana’s Revolution Square in a sea of red, white and blue national flags, and portraits of Fidel Castro. However, he died in November last year and Raul Castro, after just more than a decade in power, has said he will step aside in February next year. Yesterday’s parade in Havana was expected to make a show of support for Venezuela’s leftist government, which is facing violent opposition protests, top Cuban labor union leader Ulises Guilarte said.
FRANCE
Macron visits memorial
Presidential candidate and former economics minister Emmanuel Macron on Sunday paid homage to the tens of thousands of French Jews killed in the Holocaust with a somber, simple message to voters: “Never again.” Chants of “Macron, President” mixed with tears of sorrowful remembrance as he visited the Holocaust Memorial in Paris, walking past panels bearing the names of those deported to death in Nazi camps, while Holocaust survivors and children of its victims looked on. It was the second time in three days that Macron visited a site tied to the nation’s wartime history, as he seeks to remind voters of the shame of its Nazi collaboration — and especially of the anti-Semitic past of his rival Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front party. The two face a presidential runoff on Sunday.
PHILIPPINES
Duterte visits Chinese ships
President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday visited Chinese warships docked in his home town of Davao City, highlighting his fast-warming relations with Beijing. Duterte boarded the missile destroyer Chang Chun, which arrived with two other vessels on Sunday for a three-day goodwill visit. “Goodwill games” of basketball and tug-of-war are being staged between the Chinese sailors and their Filipino counterparts in Davao, the navy said in a statement. The visit of the Chinese vessels to Davao instead of Manila is seen as a personal gesture to Duterte. Opposition legislator Gary Alejano, a former military officer, said “the president is trying everything to appease China. It is not about an independent foreign policy. It is about selling out and capitulating to China.”
UNITED STATES
Civilian toll updated
Combined Joint Task Force airstrikes aimed against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria have “unintentionally” killed 352 civilians since the offensive began in 2014, according to the Pentagon. The tally did not include findings from an investigation the coalition said it had launched into one allegedly particularly deadly strike on March 17 in west Mosul. The statement released on Sunday said 42 reports of civilian fatalities were still under review. From November last year to March 9 this year, coalition strikes killed 45 civilians, the statement said. The Pentagon said 80 civilian casualties caused by US-led strikes in Iraq and Syria from August 2014 to date had not previously been publicly announced.
TUNISIA
Two militants die in raid
A militant linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) blew himself up on Sunday and another was shot dead during an operation by security forces, the National Guard said. Both men were “dangerous terrorist elements,” and one, probably a foreigner, was a leader in a group linked to AQIM, guard spokesman Khalifa Chibani said. The second man was wearing an explosives belt, but was shot dead before he could detonate it. The operation took place in the central town of Sidi Bouzid as a house was being raided in a security sweep after weeks of surveillance, he said. Three people suspected of links to the AQIM were detained, he said.
INDIA
Mob lynches two Muslims
Police officials yesterday said two Muslim men were beaten to death by a mob in Assam state on Sunday over allegations of cow theft, the latest in a series of similar attacks across the country. Senior Assam police official Mukesh Aggarwal said that police have filed a criminal complaint and are trying to identify the members of the mob. No arrests have been made so far. The attack took place in Nagon district when a mob accused the two men of trying to steal cows and began beating them with sticks and rocks. Police in the district said that by the time they reached the scene the men were already in critical condition, and were declared dead at a hospital.
JAPAN
Golden link to ‘Star Wars’
Tokyo jeweler Ginza Tanaka is offering a life-size Darth Vader mask made of 24-karat gold for ¥154 million (US$1.4 million) to mark the 40th anniversary of the release of the first Star Wars movie. The mask is 26.5cm wide and 30cm high. The mask is not designed for wearing — at about 15kg, it would be too heavy — and it also has no opening for a head.
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