JAPAN
Blackmail letters received
Nine companies, including drugmakers and a newspaper, have received blackmail letters containing white powder suspected to be cyanide, police and local media said yesterday. The letters were sent under the names of executed members of the Aum Shinrikyo — a doomsday cult behind the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack in Tokyo — and demanded 35 million won (US$31,000) in bitcoins, a police spokesman said. “Major pharmaceutical and other companies ... received envelopes with threatening letters and a powdery substance” suspected to be cyanide, he said, without identifying the companies. “I will make fake medicine containing potassium cyanide and distribute it,” the letter said, according to the spokesman, and warned “a tragedy will happen” if the money was not transferred by Feb. 22. Local media said the names on the letters — which were received on Friday — included Shoko Asahara, the leader of the sect, who was executed with 12 of his one-time followers in July last year. The substance was later confirmed to be cyanide, the Asahi Shimbun reported.
THAILAND
Singer sports swastika
A member of the nation’s most popular all-girl band donned a shirt portraying Nazi Germany’s state flag with a swastika emblazoned across it during a televised rehearsal on Saturday, drawing “shock and dismay” from the Israeli embassy. Pichayapa “Namsai” Natha, one of the singers of BNK48, wore the red-and-black top complete with swastika during the group’s rehearsal on Friday. The deputy chief of mission of the Israeli embassy in Bangkok took to Twitter to express “shock and dismay” at the outfit, given that yesterday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. “Presenting Nazi symbols by the band’s singer hurt the feelings of millions around the world,” Smadar Shapira said. On Saturday night, Namsai apologized tearfully onstage during a concert. “I want this to be an example for everyone, please forgive me,” she said.
KENYA
Blast injures two
An explosive device went off outside a cinema in a busy part of Nairobi on Saturday, injuring two people, police said. One of those injured in the explosion was a handcart pusher who received a small piece of luggage from an individual who later fled. The other was a newspaper vendor, said Philip Ndolo, police commander in charge of Nairobi. A search was under way for the unidentified person reported to have deposited the luggage in a cart, Ndolo said. Detectives think the luggage contained an improvised explosive device that went off, a police officer at the scene said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
PAKISTAN
Asia Bibi lawyer to return
Lawyer Saiful Mulook, who fled to the Netherlands after receiving death threats for defending a Christian woman on blasphemy charges, is returning home, Dutch politician Joel Voordewind, said in a tweet on Saturday. Mulook planned to return to defend Asia Bibi in a new hearing in her case., the lawmaker said. Voordewind posted a picture of himself and Mulook at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, adding that Mulook was “hopeful” this would be the last hearing in Bibi’s case. Bibi was convicted of blasphemy in 2010 over allegations that she made derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbors objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim.
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