INDONESIA
Raped teen jailed
A 15-year-old Indonesian who was raped by her brother has been sentenced to six months in prison for abortion. Both the girl and brother were convicted on Thursday, said Singgih Hermawan, deputy chief of Batanghari police in Jambi province. The 18-year-old brother received a two-year prison sentence for sexual offence against a minor. Prosecutors had demanded a one-year prison sentence for the girl and seven years for the brother. It was revealed in court that the girl was raped eight times since September last year. Residents in May discovered a headless fetus near a palm oil plantation. The sister and brother’s mother is facing separate charges of aiding abortion.
SOUTH AFRICA
Taxi drivers shot dead
Gunmen have shot dead 11 taxi drivers returning to Johannesburg from the funeral of a colleague in KwaZulu-Natal, a police spokesman said yesterday. The drivers, who were members of the Gauteng taxi association, were in a minibus driving along the R74 when unknown gunmen launched an ambush and opened fire. “There was a shooting at about 8pm last night. The vehicle was ambushed. There were 11 fatalities and four were seriously injured and are in hospital,” KwaZulu-Natal spokesman Jay Naicker said. “We understand they were from the Gauteng taxi association. There has been a lot of taxi violence in the area, but we are still investigating who the perpetrators were,” Naicker added. Minibus taxis are the most popular form of transport in South Africa and violence is common by rival groups vying for dominance on profitable routes.
FRANCE
US should ‘see sense’
As US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin on on Saturday urged China and the EU to respect “free, fair and reciprocal trade,” French Minister of the Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire hit back, urging the US to “see sense” amid fears of global commerce conflict. Le Maire and Mnuchin arrived in Buenos Aires for the Group of 20 summit of finance ministers and central bankers at the end of a week in which US President Donald Trump ramped up his inflammatory remarks and threats regarding global trade. “This trade war will produce only losers, it will destroy jobs and put pressure on global growth,” Le Maire told reporters, adding: “We call on the United States to see sense, to respect the rules of multilateralism and to respect their allies.” Trump’s protectionist policies saw him slap tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, angering allies the EU, Canada and Mexico, and triggering retaliatory measures. “Global trade cannot be based on survival of the fittest,” Le Maire said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Summer butterfly counting
Britain is holding a Big Butterfly Count to help experts assess the state of the wildlife environment. The count is being backed by celebrities, including naturalist David Attenborough, and depends on people devoting 15 minutes to counting butterfly species. More than 60,000 volunteers took part in the Butterfly Conservation survey last year. The annual survey began in 2010 and the group said that it has become the largest butterfly monitoring project in the world. Butterflies react very quickly to environmental changes, making them excellent indicators of biodiversity, it said, adding that a decline in butterflies is “an early warning” of other wildlife losses. The count, which also helps to identify threatened species, goes until Aug. 12.
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