FRANCE
Pneumonia risk outlined
Pneumonia will kill nearly 11 million children under the age of five by 2030, experts said in Paris yesterday. While in the developed world the severe lung infection mainly affects elderly people, in developing nations it is children who bear the brunt, with hundreds of thousands dying each year from the easily preventable disease. More than 880,000 children — mainly aged less than two — died from pneumonia in 2016 alone. An analysis conducted by Johns Hopkins University and aid group Save the Children using forecasts based on current trends showed that more than 10,800,000 under-fives would succumb to the disease by the end of the next decade, with the bulk of them Nigeria, India and Pakistan. The study, published on World Pneumonia Day, found that scaling up existing vaccination coverage, coupled with cheap antibiotics and ensuring good nutrition for children, could save 4.1 million lives. “It beggars belief that close to a million children are dying every year from a disease that we have the knowledge and resources to defeat,” Save the Children chief executive officer Kevin Watkins said.
EGYPT
Court adds to terror list
A Cairo criminal court has added al-Gamaa al-Islamiya and 164 of its leaders and members to a list of terrorist entities, the Official Gazette said on Sunday. The group waged a bloody campaign against security forces in the 1990s and later entered mainstream politics. In an Oct. 28 ruling, the court said that following the 2011 uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak, “many leaders and members of al-Gamaa al-Islamiya renounced their previous initiatives to stop violence,” the Official Gazette reported. Travel bans and asset freezes are automatically imposed on those added to the list.
PAKISTAN
Fake Bibi reports criticized
The government yesterday criticized posts on social media that purported to show Asia Bibi — a Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy charges after eight years on death row — leaving the country. Minister of Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry called the postings “fake,” one of which claims to show Bibi meeting Pope Francis. The photograph is actually of Bibi’s daughter from two years ago. Chaudhry said the images misidentifying Bibi prompted death threats to a lawmaker, who was shown in one photo. Opponents Bibi’s acquittal have blocked her freedom and demanded she be publicly executed. The government said Bibi was at a secret location for her own protection until the review process is finished.
FIJI
Rabuka case dismissed
An appellate court yesterday threw out a corruption case against the main opposition leader, Sitiveni Rabuka, clearing the way for him to contest tomorrow’s election. Rabuka, head of the Social Democratic Liberal Party, had been campaigning with the threat of disqualification hanging over him if he was convicted of making false financial declarations. However, the High Court in Suva backed a magistrates’ court decision to acquit the former prime minister, dismissing an appeal from the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Chief judge Anthony Gates said “essential elements [of the case] were not proved, the appeal fails and must be dismissed.” He also awarded Rabuka costs of FJ$4,000 (US$1,900). Rabuka said he felt “great and getting better.”
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