JAPAN
Chopper, three crew missing
The Ministry of Defense yesterday said it was searching for three crew members of a Maritime Self-Defense Force helicopter in the Sea of Japan after contact was lost with the chopper. One crew member had been rescued uninjured. The ministry said the SH-60J anti-submarine warfare helicopter lost contact about 90km off the coast of Aomori Prefecture late on Saturday. It said the flight data recorder had been located, but did not say what had happened to the helicopter, whether it crashed or ditched into the sea. The self-defense force has launched an investigation into the incident.
THAILAND
Yingluck eyes UK asylum
Fugitive former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra fled to Dubai and might try to seek asylum in the UK, a junta source said on Saturday, after she ducked a legal ruling, wrong-footing the court and her supporters alike. The junta source, who is well-placed in the security hierarchy, gave a detailed description of her escape, saying she took a private jet from Thailand to Singapore and on to Dubai, the base of Shinawatra family patriarch Thaksin, who is Yingluck’s elder brother. “But Dubai is not Yingluck’s final destination,” the source said, adding she might be aiming “to claim asylum in Britain.” Thaksin, who once owned the Manchester City soccer club, owns property in London and spends significant amounts of time in the city.
CHINA
Anti-graft head suspected
The head of the anti-graft committee for the Ministry of Finance has been put under investigation for suspected graft, the Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog said yesterday. Mo Jiancheng (莫建成) was suspected of “serious discipline breaches,” a euphemism for graft, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said in a statement. Mo, who became the top graft buster for the Ministry of Finance in December 2015, was also a member of the ministry’s party committee and previously served as deputy party secretary and vice governor of Jiangxi Province.
SPAIN
Defiance march in Barcelona
Hundreds of thousands of people marched down Barcelona’s Passeig de Gracia yesterday behind the slogan no tinc por (“I am not afraid”) in a show of defiance after last week’s terror attacks that left 15 people dead and more than 100 injured in Barcelona and Cambrils. The protest, the largest in the city since about 2 million protested against the Iraq war in 2003, was called by the city council and the Catalan government. Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau called on people to “fill the streets to overflowing” and to show unity in the face of threats of further attacks on Spain from the Islamic State group. Led by King Felipe VI, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy marched alongside an array of senior government officials and others.
UNITED STATES
Canine marine laid to rest
The ashes of a cancer-stricken service black lab who served three tours in Afghanistan with the marines have reached their final resting place. A couple hundred people on Saturday gathered for Cena’s burial at the Michigan War Dog Memorial, reports said. The dog was a bomb-sniffer until retiring in 2014. Cena became a service dog for Lance Corporal Jeff DeYoung, the dog’s first wartime partner. DeYoung organized a celebration last month in Muskegon that drew hundreds before Cena was euthanized at a museum ship and carried off in a flag-draped coffin.
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