UNITED STATES
Zsa Zsa scoops ugly prize
A nine-year-old English bulldog was named the winner of this year’s World’s Ugliest Dog contest in the San Francisco Bay Area. Zsa Zsa won the title on Saturday night at the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds in Petaluma. The dog’s owner, Megan Brainard of Anoka, Minnesota, will receive US$1,500. Brainard found Zsa Zsa on a pet-finding site, according to the contest bio. Dogs in the annual competition, now in its 30th year, included a blackhead-covered Chinese crested-dachshund mutt, a bulldog mix with excess wrinkly skin and a Pekingese named Wild Thang.
Photo: AFP
IRAQ
New coalition formed
Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi and Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Saturday said they had agreed to a political coalition amid talks to form a new government after last month’s elections. Al-Sadr’s political bloc won the largest share of seats in parliament, and he had already joined in a coalition with the second-place bloc led by Hadi al-Amiri, a Shiite militia leader backed by Iran. Al-Abadi’s bloc came in third in the polls. The twin coalitions point to a return to a grand Shiite coalition, under the sway of Iran.
MALAYSIA
Anwar hospitalized
Former prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was taken to a hospital late on Saturday after complaining of back and shoulder pain. The 70-year-old was being treated following a trip to Turkey, said Fahmi Fadzil, a spokesman for Anwar’s People’s Justice Party. Anwar’s condition was stable, he said.
SOUTH KOREA
US military readies coffins
The US military has moved 100 wooden coffins to the Demilitarized Zone to prepare for Pyongyang’s returning of the remains of US soldiers who have been missing since the Korean War. Spokesman Colonel Chad Carroll on Saturday said 158 metal transfer cases were also sent to a US air base near Seoul, and would be used to send the remains home. It remains unclear when and how the transfer of remains will occur.
PAKISTAN
Local Taliban choose chief
Taliban militants chose a religious scholar as their new leader in place of Mullah Fazlullah, who ordered the assassination of Malala Yousafzai and was killed earlier this month in a US drone strike. Mohammad Khurasani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, on Saturday said that the executive council of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan appointed Mufti Noor Wali Mahsud as its new chief and Mufti Mazhim, AKA Mufti Hafzullah, as his deputy. It was the group’s first confirmation that Fazlullah had been killed in the drone attack in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province.
MEXICO
Juarez day’s death toll: 14
At least 14 people were killed on Saturday in three shooting incidents in Juarez. In two of the attacks, men who had gathered to watch the World Cup match between Mexico and South Korea were shot by armed gunmen, killing 11 and injuring two. Three people were taken from a party early on Saturday morning and executed. The murders bring to 128 the number of people killed in Juarez this month.
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