SAUDI ARABIA
Peace accord signed
Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed signed a peace agreement in Jeddah, Eritrean Minister of Information Yemane Gebremeskel said. The two leaders signed the accord in the presence of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres, Gebremeskel tweeted on Sunday. “This agreement is a materialization of extensive Saudi back-channel diplomacy to maintain stability and development in one of the world’s most strategic locations,” King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies Secretary-General Saud al-Sarhan said by e-mail from Riyadh.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
New policy on expats
The country is to allow foreigners to obtain long-term residency visas after they retire, in a major policy shift as the government of the seven-state federation looks to bolster economic growth. The new law, which goes into effect next year, includes the following provisions: The extended residency visas would apply to retirees over the age of 55 and run for a period of five years, with the possibility of renewal. Qualifications include having an investment in a property worth 2 million dirhams (US$544,500), or savings of no less than 1 million dirhams or an active income of no less than 20,000 dirhams a month.
ISRAEL
US professor released
The country has released a US law professor detained for allegedly trying to block troops in a West Bank village slated for demolition. Frank Romano, 66, was detained on Friday in the embattled village of Khan al-Ahmar, along with two Palestinian activists. Witnesses said that Romano stood in front of heavy equipment being used to clear barriers that had been set up to slow demolition. Activists said he began a hunger strike while in detention. Gaby Lasky, Romano’s lawyer, said a court ordered his release on Sunday. She said he was freed early yesterday after police decided not to appeal the decision. Upon his release, Romano returned to the village and said: “I can continue the struggle with you.”
UNITED STATES
McCartney tops US charts
Paul McCartney is back on the top of the charts, on Sunday earning his first solo No. 1 album in the US in 36 years. Egypt Station — a confident 16-track album in which McCartney experiments with a younger rock feel in addition to his classic Beatles sound — marked the first time that he has ever debuted as a solo artist on top of the benchmark US Billboard chart. The English legend — who at 76 retains a hectic touring schedule — spared no promotional effort for the album, appearing on US late-night shows and livestreaming an invite-only concert inside New York’s Grand Central Station.
VENEZUELA
Firemen jailed over parody
Two firemen who made a viral video portraying President Nicolas Maduro as a donkey were jailed on Sunday pending trial on charges of inciting hate and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted, rights groups said. Opponents of the leftist Maduro have long dubbed him “Maburro” in a play on the Spanish word for donkey, “burro.” In the video, one fireman leads a donkey through a Merida fire station while another talks to the animal as if he is guiding the president on one of his many official visits shown on state television.
THAILAND
New party founder indicted
Police yesterday charged the founder and two members of a new political party opposed to military rule with violating a computer crime law, an offense that could result in a five-year jail sentence, a fine of 100,000 baht (US$3,062.79) or both. Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, 39, founder of the Future Forward Party, and two senior members were charged under the Computer Crimes Act, after reporting to a Bangkok police station, where they were questioned and fingerprinted. They are accused of giving false information in a June 29 speech by Thanathorn that was posted on Facebook. Thanatorn, an auto parts billionaire and newcomer to the political scene, said he and his colleagues rejected the charges. Police said they would forward the case to the attorney general within four months.
MYANMAR
Over 30 escapees on the run
More than 30 inmates on the run after a jailbreak might try to cross into Thailand, an official said yesterday, a day after they hijacked a garbage truck and plowed through the prison gates. The fugitives broke out of Hpa-An jail in eastern Karen State on Sunday morning. State media said 10 of the 41 escapees had been recaptured, while police are scouring nearby villages for those still at large. The jailbreak has left villagers near the prison scared, local official Khin Thet Mar said. “[The escaped prisoners] don’t have anything to eat or money to use so people think they might threaten them to get what they need,” she said. “They might have fled to Thailand, but the authorities here are trying to recapture them by blocking possible escape routes.” The ringleader was serving a life prison term without parole for “drug trafficking, illegal possession of arms and attempted murder,” state-run paper the Global New Light of Myanmar said.
JAPAN
Older people number 35.6m
More than 28 percent of the Japanese population is now officially classified as elderly, according to government data, the highest rate in the world as the first wave of postwar baby boomers enter old age. Those aged 65 or older now make up a record 35.6 million, or 28.1 percent of the total population, the government said on Sunday. The proportion is the highest by far in the world, ahead of 23.3 percent in Italy, 21.9 percent in Portugal and 21.7 percent in Germany, according to UN data for those countries. The government also said those aged 70 or older accounted for 20.7 percent of the population, surpassing 20 percent for the first time.
BELGIUM
Rapper not to be extradited
A court yesterday rejected a Spanish extradition request for rapper Valtonyc, who has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years for allegedly praising terrorism in his songs. Jose Miguel Arenas Beltran — better known as “Valtonyc” — is one of several Twitter users and rappers who have recently been tried in Spain for glorifying terror or for insulting the king. “The judge has decided there will be no extradition,” one of the musician’s lawyers, Simon Bekaert, said after a court hearing in the city of Ghent. Prosecutors could appeal the decision, but it was not immediately clear if they would. The 24-year-old musician from Majorca was tracked down after he published a blurry photograph on his Twitter account showing a canal and a red-and-white tourist boat typical of Ghent. Spain’s National Court issued an European arrest warrant after the sighting.
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