TURKEY
Arrest warrants issued
Authorities issued detention warrants for 170 people suspected of links to the network of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is accused of orchestrating a failed coup in 2016, the state-run Anadolu news agency said yesterday. Those targeted in the operation, which was centered in Istanbul and spread across 37 other provinces, included retired, suspended and serving soldiers, Anadolu said, adding that 22 of them were detained yesterday morning. The suspects are believed to have contacted imams of the network via payphones and landlines, the agency said.
ISRAEL
Gag order lifted in probe
Police have named the two close associates of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested for their suspected role in a wide-ranging corruption probe after a gag order was lifted yesterday. They were identified as former Netanyahu spokesman Nir Hefetz and former Ministry of Communications director Shlomo Filber. The two are suspected of promoting regulation worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Bezeq telecommunications company in return for favorable coverage of Netanyahu in a highly popular subsidiary news site. Bezeq chairman Shaul Elovitch is also in custody, along with his wife, son and other Bezeq executives.
UNITED STATES
Trump endorses Romney bid
President Donald Trump has endorsed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in Utah’s Senate race, another sign that the two Republicans are burying the hatchet after a fraught relationship. The Republican presidential nominee in 2012, Romney last week said he would seek the nomination to replace Senator Orrin Hatch, who is retiring. “He will make a great Senator and worthy successor to @OrrinHatch, and has my full support and endorsement!,” Trump tweeted on Monday night. Romney responded: “Thank you Mr. President for the support. I hope that over the course of the campaign I also earn the support and endorsement of the people of Utah.”
MALAYSIA
Man jailed for PM caricature
Artist and prominent opposition activist Fahmi Reza was yesterday jailed for a month for publishing a caricature of Prime Minister Najib Razak looking like a clown. Fahmi was found guilty under a communications law for spreading online content deemed “obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person.” He was also fined 30,000 ringgit (US$7,700). His lawyer, Syahredzan Johan, said the judge did not give any grounds for the ruling. “We are appealing the decision,” Syahredzan said, adding that they would post a 10,000 ringgit bond so that Fahmi could be released from custody.
INDONESIA
Eruption reshaped summit
The eruption of Mount Sinabung on Monday morning that shot ash 5km high also “annihilated” its summit, the Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation said. Before and after photographs from the center show an enormous chunk missing from the peak.Volcanologist Devy Kamil Syahbana said the chunk, known as the “lava dome,” had a volume of at least 1.6 million cubic meters. Hot ash clouds rolled down its slopes, traveling as far as 4.9km from the crater. No one was injured by the eruption, although video footage showed screaming children fleeing a school outside the exclusion zone surrounding the volcano as a billowing column of ash rose in the background.
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