JAPAN
Eight claim to be N Koreans
Eight men found on the nation’s northwestern coast on Thursday night claim to be North Koreans whose boat ran adrift during a fishing trip, the government’s top spokesman told reporters yesterday. The men were found in Akita Prefecture late on Thursday near a 20m-long wooden boat and have been taken into custody. The government will deal “appropriately” with the men, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said, adding that the men, whose nationalities could not be confirmed, were healthy. The government earlier this month rescued and returned to North Korea a group of three fishermen whose boat had capsized in the Sea of Japan. Wooden boats containing what appear to be the corpses of North Koreans sometimes drift ashore on the coast, but it is unusual for them to make it to the nation alive.
UNITED STATES
Navy ends search for sailors
The navy said it has called off a search for three sailors missing since Wednesday, when a transport plane crashed in the Philippine Sea south of Japan en route to the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. “During the course of two days, eight US Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships, three helicopter squadrons and maritime patrol aircraft covered nearly 1,000 square nautical miles [3,430km2],” the Seventh Fleet said in a media release. Eight other people on the C-2 Greyhound were rescued shortly after the aircraft crashed and were transferred to the Reagan. The propeller-powered C-2 was conducting a routine flight carrying passengers and cargo from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan to the carrier. The mainstay transport aircraft for the navy’s carrier fleet has been in operation for more than five decades and is due to be replaced by a long-range version of the tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey. The navy said it is investigating the cause of the crash.
UNITED STATES
Woman helps homeless man
A fund set up to raise money for a homeless man who helped a woman when her car ran out of gas in Philadelphia has collected more than US$280,000. The GoFundMe campaign was started by Bordentown, New Jersey, resident Kate McClure earlier this month after she was stuck along Interstate 95 and Johnny Bobbitt Jr bought her some gas with his last US$20. McClure said she did not have money to pay him back, but she returned to his spot several times in the following days to give him cash, clothes and food. She said she then started the fundraiser hoping to collect US$10,000 to cover housing and other expenses for him. McClure said she wishes she “could do more for this selfless man.” Donations had poured in from about 10,000 people by Thursday.
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