PHILIPPINES
Duterte unaware of US help
President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday said that he was not aware the US government was providing assistance to government troops in its battle against Muslim militants in Marawi. He also said he “never approached America” for help. “I am not aware of that until they arrived,” he told a media briefing when asked about US support in the fighting in Marawi. The military said on Saturday that US forces were providing technical assistance.
AFGHANISTAN
Three US soldiers killed
Three US soldiers were killed and another was wounded on Saturday in Nangarhar Province, the Pentagon said. A local official said the deaths and injury stem from an attack by an local soldier, who also died. A spokesman for the provincial governor said in a statement that the attack took place in the Achin District. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
PAKISTAN
Facebook post earns death
Taimoor Raza has been sentenced to death for committing blasphemy on Facebook, lawyers said on Saturday, the first conviction on charges arising from social media. Judge Shabbir Ahmad Awan handed down the verdict in Bahawalpur, finding Raza guilty of insulting the prophet Mohammed, prosecutor Shafiq Qureshi said. Raza had a Facebook argument about Islam with someone who turned out to be a counter-terrorism department official, defense lawyer Rana Fida Hussain said. The official brought charges based on the comments made on the social networking site. Hussain said his client was innocent and that he would appeal the conviction.
VIETNAM
Dissident loses citizenship
The government has stripped a French-Vietnamese former political prisoner and mathematics lecturer of his citizenship. Pham Minh Hoang, 62, who has dual nationality, was sentenced to three years in jail for attempted subversion in 2011, but was released after 17 months and ordered to serve three years’ house arrest. He was convicted for writing a series of articles under the pen name Phan Kien Quoc that prosecutors said tarnished the country’s image and were aimed at overthrowing the government. Hoang said that he had continued to publish “peaceful” articles on social media that were critical of the government since his release from prison. Revoking his citizenship effectively renders his status in the country illegal. “I am very upset and I’m waiting, I’m waiting to be expelled,” an emotional Hoang said by telephone yesterday. He said he received a copy of the letter on Saturday, and was surprised not to find a clear explanation for the decision. He is the only dissident to have his citizenship revoked in modern memory.
ISRAEL
Netanyahus win libel case
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, yesterday won a libel suit against a journalist who claimed that Sara once kicked her husband out of their car during an argument. A Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court ordered Igal Sarna to pay the couple about US$32,500 in damages over what it said was his unproven account in a Facebook post last year. Netanyahu testified that the alleged incident, which Sarna said he learned about from an acquaintance who cited one of the prime minister’s security guards, never took place. “He crossed the line,” Netanyahu said of Sarna, who writes for the mass circulation Yedioth Ahronoth.
GERMANY
Thirty-seven injured in blaze
Thirty-seven people, including 10 children, were injured in a fire that broke out early yesterday in a migrant housing center in the northern city of Bremen, fire and police officials said. The fire started in a garbage bin in the basement of the building, which was home to more than 100 migrants, a police spokesman said. He said the cause of the fire remained under investigation, including any possible anti-immigrant motivation. The Bremen fire department said 14 of the injured, including the children, were taken to clinics in the city while others were treated on the scene. More than 70 firefighters and 27 vehicles were involved in extinguishing the blaze.
LIBYA
Migrants missing off coast
At least 10 migrants have died after their Europe-bound boats sank off the coast and about 100 people are missing, coastguard officials and aid groups said on Saturday. Eight bodies were found on an inflatable craft that can carry up to 120 passengers, said Colonel Fathi al-Rayani, head of the coast guard in Garabulli, 60km east of Tripoli. He estimated that “at least 100” migrants were missing. The boat was spotted deflated off Garabulli and the coast guard found the bodies inside, a reporter who accompanied them said.
UNITED STATES
Vessel named after Giffords
The US Navy’s newest ship was put into active service following a commissioning ceremony in Houston on Saturday, named after former US representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was injured during a 2011 shooting. Giffords told a crowd at the ceremony in the Texas Gulf Coast city of Galveston that she was honored the 421-foot (128m) ship will carry her name and the vessel is “strong and tough, just like her crew.” The navy has said it named the ship after Giffords because of the perseverance she showed after the shooting. Giffords was shot in the head at an event outside a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona, in 2011. Six people died and Giffords was among the 13 people injured.
NIGERIA
Boko Haram claims attack
Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the attack on the northeastern city of Maiduguri on Wednesday night that killed at least 14 people, the first major assault in 18 months on a key stronghold against the militants. “We have killed those we can and have left with the bounties of war we are displaying now,” said a voice on a video released by Boko Haram on Saturday, showing the group’s fighters among piles of ammunition and other supplies. “We are hale and hearty, contrary to claims that we have been killed.” The Boko Haram fighters attacked Maiduguri’s suburbs with anti-aircraft guns and several suicide bombers, a police official said on Thursday. The video showed a man who appears to be Abubakar Shekau, leader of one of two branches of the group, standing in front of fighters and weaponized vehicles and speaking Arabic, though the military has repeatedly claimed to have killed him.
UNITED KINGDOM
Queen Mary 2 rescues sailor
The Queen Mary 2 cruise liner has rescued a sailor taking part in a trans-Atlantic yacht race after several vessels were damaged in rough seas. The Royal Western Yacht Club in Plymouth said that three boats set off emergency beacons on Friday amid 60-knot (111kph) winds and 15m waves. Canada’s coast guard sent ships and air support to the boats. Cruise line Cunard said the Queen Mary 2 rescued a lone yachtsman.
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