MEXICO
Election changes advance
The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) on Wednesday took a key step toward allowing non-party members, such as Minister of Finance Jose Antonio Meade, to run for president in next year’s election. A commission reviewing PRI statutes voted to make the change, reports said, but the move must still be approved by a wider group tomorrow, according to a source close to PRI secretary-general Claudia Ruiz Massieu. The change would open the door to the candidacy of Meade, a softly spoken technocrat who has served various Cabinet posts in both PRI and National Action Party (PAN) governments. President Enrique Ochoa said there was a need for the party to change its ways ahead of the election. “A modern party should establish open and flexible mechanisms for citizen participation, both those who are party activists, and those who support us,” he said in remarks distributed to reporters.
IRAN
War involvement denied
The nation yesterday denied accusations of involvement in Tajikistan’s civil war in the 1990s, calling the claims an attempt to damage bilateral ties. In a documentary aired by Tajik state television on Wednesday, three Tajiks said that, following training in Iran, they had killed politicians and other prominent figures inside Tajikistan during the 1992 to 1997 war and attacked a Russian military base there. The embassy in Tajikistan said the accusations were unfounded. “The airing of such biased films ... shows that certain circles do not want to see ... stronger friendship between the two countries,” it said in a statement.
UNITED STATES
Whale found on ship
A cruise ship on Wednesday reached an Alaskan port with a surprise on its bow: the carcass of a humpback whale. The Grand Princess, a 290m ship in the Princess Cruises fleet, pulled into Ketchikan with the animal lodged on its submerged, bulbous bow, a device designed to avoid wave-making. Princess Cruises spokesman Brian O’Connor said the company was surprised and saddened to discover the whale. “It is unknown how or when this happened as the ship felt no impact,” he said in a statement. “It is also unknown, at this time, whether the whale was alive or already deceased before becoming lodged on the bow.” O’Connor said that navigators spotted no whales near the ship as it sailed overnight toward Ketchikan. Photos indicated that the whale might be a juvenile. The cruise line has a comprehensive whale avoidance program, O’Connor said, adding that ship crews have guidelines on how to operate after spotting whales and alter courses and reduce speed to avoid them.
UNITED STATES
Titanosaur given name
A new species of titanosaur, discovered in Patagonia three years ago and perhaps the largest known dinosaur to have existed, on Wednesday was formally bestowed a new name: Patagotitan mayorum. The name translates as giant from Patagonia, paleontologist Diego Pol told an unveiling ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where a cast of the colossal creature has been on display since last year. It is so large that its head and neck extend into a lobby. Mayorum was selected after the name of the family on whose Argentinian ranch the remains of the giant herbivore were excavated in 2014. The young adult is thought to have weighed up to 70 tonnes.
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