UNITED KINGDOM
London violent crime surges
Two young teenagers were shot in broad daylight in London on Sunday, the day after another teen was fatally gunned down, police said, as the city grapples with a surge in violent crime. London’s Metropolitan Police said the teenagers, aged 13 and 15, were taken to hospitals after officers found them within minutes of each other nursing gunshot wounds at separate nearby locations in the suburb of Harrow. Both suffered head injuries, with the younger victim wounded by a shotgun pellet, but neither were in a life-threatening condition, the police said. The incident came just hours after a 17-year-old boy was shot on Saturday evening in Southwark, south London, and died at the scene, it said.
GERMANY
New mayor gets broken nose
A man has been arrested after punching the new mayor of Freiburg as he was celebrating his election win. Independent candidate Martin Horn, 33, suffered a broken nose, a broken tooth and bruises. Hours earlier he had won a runoff against long-time Green party incumbent Dieter Salomon. A spokeswoman for the Freiburg police said the 54-year-old suspect’s motivation is not known, but that he is known to have psychological problems.
LIBYA
Three migrant boats stopped
The coast guard has intercepted hundreds of migrants, including women and children, in the Mediterranean Sea. It says three boats were stopped on Sunday before leaving territorial waters off the coast of western districts and cities of Zuwara, Sabratha and Ras Ajdir, which are close to Tunisia. The first boat was carrying 98 migrants, including nine women, and it was intercepted near the shores of Zuwara. Most on board were Arab nationals from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The second boat, stopped near Sabratha, was carrying 114 migrants. A migrant from that boat drowned and a second is missing. The third boat, with 97 migrants, was intercepted near Tripoli’s Janzour area.
UNITED STATES
Kilauea lull permits pet grab
The number of homes destroyed by Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano has climbed to 26 homes, as authorities allowed some of the more than 1,700 residents who have been evacuated to briefly return home to gather pets, medicine and other necessities. Amber Makuakane Kane, 37, a teacher and single mother of two, said her three-bedroom house in Leilani Estates was destroyed by lava. Lava has spread about 36,000 square meters surrounding the most active fissure, although the rate of movement is slow. There was no indication when the lava might stop or how far it might spread.
SOUTH AFRICA
Giraffe headbutts man to death
A filmmaker was killed by a giraffe while filming on a reserve outside Johannesburg, the game lodge’s owner said, adding that he died after being air-lifted to a hospital. The giraffe hit Carlos Carvalho in the head at the Glen Afric Country Lodge in North West Province. “When Carlos was standing in front of the giraffe, the animal spread its legs, bent its neck and swung its head at Carlos,” Richard Brooker, whose family owns the lodge, told the Netwerk24 Afrikaans news Web site. Callacrew, a South African film production agency, said Carvalho died on Wednesday night. Carvalho, a 47-year-old father of two, was reported to have been looking through the camera eyepiece to take close-up images of the giraffe when the incident occurred.
SOUTH KOREA
Singapore tipped for meet
US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are likely to meet in Singapore next month, media reports in Seoul said yesterday. The landmark summit will take place in “mid-June,” the Chosun Ilbo reported, citing diplomatic sources who quoted White House national security advisor John Bolton. The paper suggested that the possibility of Singapore hosting the meeting had “increased greatly”, after a decision by Trump to host South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the White House later this month.
NEW ZEALAND
Massive sinkhole opens
A new sinkhole on a North Island dairy farm as deep as four double-decker buses and almost the length of two soccer fields has grabbed the attention of vulcanologists. The chasm appeared after heavy rainfall near the town of Rotorua and left a jagged scar on the landscape, exposing rock deposits from 60,000 years ago. Experts believe rain dissolved underground limestone over thousands of years, eventually causing the ground to collapse and create the canyon. “This is pretty spectacular, it’s a lot bigger than the ones I’d normally see,” vulcanologist Brad Scott said of the chasm that is 20m deep and 200m long. Scott said the farm lay on the crater of a long-dormant volcano. Farmer Colin Tremain said the sinkhole appeared overnight last week.
PAKISTAN
Anti-polio drive launched
A health official said a five-day anti-polio drive was launched yesterday to vaccinate 23.8 million children under five. Aimal Khan, a spokesman with the anti-polio drive, says the campaign was launched amid tight security. A total of 161,000 health workers in 109 districts are taking part, he said.
AUSTRALIA
Koala rescue plan budgeted
The New South Wales state government yesterday announced a US$34 million plan to help bring its koala population back from the brink, following a rapid decline in the furry marsupial’s fortunes. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates there might be as few as 43,000 koalas left in the wild, down from a population believed to number more than 10 million prior to European settlement of the continent in 1788. “Koalas are a national treasure,” New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said. “It would be such a shame if this nationally iconic marsupial did not have its future secured.” Under the plan, thousands of hectares will be set aside to preserve the marsupial’s natural habitat. Funds will be used to tackle diseases ravaging koala populations, including chlamydia — which causes blindness, infertility and death in the species. Cash has also been earmarked for research, roadkill hotspot upgrades and a new hospital to care for sick and injured koalas. A hotline will also be set up to report koalas in trouble.
PHILIPPINES
Annual joint drills open
The military yesterday began its Balikatan (“shoulder-to-shoulder”) exercises with the US. The focus of the annual 12-day exercise this year is on combat drills in urban settings to train special forces in battling terrorists, in the wake of last year’s seizure of Marawi by Muslim extremists. “This is focusing mostly on countering terrorism ... that will allow us to respond to a similar scenario in the future,” Lieutenant-General Emmanuel Salamat said. Most of the 5,000 local troops and their 3,000 US counterparts taking part in the drills are from special operations units, 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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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