VIETNAM
Ministers call for restraint
The Southeast Asian country and China on Sunday called for restraint in resolving disputes in the South China Sea, where Taiwan also has claims. Speaking to reporters at a joint press briefing with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅), Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh said the two countries should manage the disputes and not expand them. “We propose that the two sides in the coming time should seriously implement the mutual understandings of leaders [of two countries] ... manage disputes well, do not have activities that complicate and expand disputes, respect the legitimate rights and interests of each other in accordance with international laws,” he said.
JAPAN
Half do not back Cabinet
About half of voters do not support Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration amid suspected cronyism and a cover-up, opinion polls by local media showed. The Yomiuri newspaper’s survey issued yesterday showed that the disapproval rating for Abe’s Cabinet rose to 50 percent from early last month, compared with 47.5 percent in the Kyodo news agency’s survey published on Sunday. The support rate for the Cabinet showed a slight rise to 42.4 percent in the Kyodo poll, while the Yomiuri poll showed a drop of six points to 42 percent.
MYANMAR
Leader calls for unity
The country’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Sunday called for her people to remain united, saying the Southeast Asian country faces “challenges” at home and abroad, as she marked two years since her party swept to power in a historic vote. “The world’s focus in on Rakhine right now, but we also need to peacefully develop the country,” she said. “We are facing challenges from inside and outside of the country, as we are struggling to develop politics, society and economy,” she added. She also urged people to “respect the intentions and vision of the international community.”
INDONESIA
Soldier killed in clash
The military yesterday said that one solider has been killed in an ongoing clash between security forces and Papuan independence fighters near the US-owned Grasberg copper mine in the country’s east. The soldier was shot in the head and died on Sunday afternoon, military spokesman Colonel Muhammad Aidi said. A joint military and police force was hunting an “armed separatist criminal group,” he said. Aidi denied a purported statement from the National Liberation Army of West Papua that numerous soldiers were killed in the clashes and a 10-year-old boy had died in a fire caused by the attack.
SOMALIA
AU soldiers killed in attack
Al-Shabaab Muslim extremist group on Sunday launched an attack on a base for African Union (AU) troops in the country’s south, killing four Ugandan peacekeepers, Ugandan army spokesman Brigadier Richard Karemire said. Four other Ugandans were injured, Karemire told reporters. At least 22 of the attackers were killed and the rest were repelled, he said. The attack started in the morning when two suicide car bombs exploded at the entrance to the heavily fortified base in Bulo-Marer, an agricultural town in the Lower Shabelle region, army Colonel Ahmed Hassan said. Nearly 100 fighters firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns attacked the base occupied by the Ugandan soldiers, he said.
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