DENMARK
Minister calls for sanctions
Minister of Foreign Affairs Anders Samuelsen yesterday called for EU-wide sanctions on Russia over a stand-off with Ukraine in the Azov Sea. Samuelsen was to meet Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin yesterday and today, and visit the city of Mariupol by the Azov Sea, the ministry said in a statement. “I believe the EU needs to react to Russia’s aggressive behavior,” Samuelsen said in the statement. The EU would issue a demarche — a formal diplomatic protest note — to Moscow as early as this week over Russia’s continued detention of 24 Ukrainian sailors captured during an incident in November last year, diplomats told reporters last week.
UNITED STATES
Friendly bear saves boy
A three-year-old boy who survived two nights alone in the woods in freezing conditions has told police and family he was helped out by a friendly bear that was with him the whole time. Rescuers responding to reports of a child crying late on Thursday last week found Casey Hathaway tangled up in thorny bushes, cold and soaked, but safe. He had gone missing on Tuesday in conditions so bad the subsequent search had to be called off. Help — perhaps real, perhaps imaginary, but certainly useful — was in those woods in North Carolina, a state that is home to plenty of black bears. Casey “did say that he had a friend in the woods that was a bear that was with him,” Craven County Sheriff Chip Hughes said.
UNITED STATES
Woman trapped in elevator
An employee of a New York billionaire’s family spent the weekend stuck in the elevator of the family’s Manhattan townhouse before she was rescued on Monday, officials said. The homeowners spent the weekend away and discovered that the woman was trapped when they arrived back home, the New York Times reported. Firefighters who rescued the woman stuck between the second and third floors learned from people at the scene that she had been stuck in the elevator since Friday, a New York City Fire Department spokesman said by telephone. The woman was in good condition when paramedics took her to the hospital, he said.
UNITED STATES
Two killed in gunbattle
The Houston police chief said what began as an attempt to serve a search warrant at a suspected drug house turned into a gunbattle that killed two suspects and injured five officers, including four who were shot. The suspects were killed on Monday after firing at officers who were trying to enter a southeast Houston home where authorities suspected black tar heroin was being sold, police chief Art Acevedo said. Four of the officers were shot and a fifth suffered a knee injury. Police did not immediately release additional information about the suspects.
MEXICO
US refugee offer rejected
The country will not accept migrants younger than 18 while they await the resolution of their US asylum claims, National Immigration Institute Commissioner Tonatiuh Guillen said on Monday. Officials had previously said that the US expressed interest in extending the “remain in Mexico” policy to other border crossings. However, the country will accept only asylum seekers aged 18 to 60, Guillen said. US authorities plan to bus asylum seekers back and forth to the border for court hearings in downtown San Diego, including an initial appearance within 45 days.
AUSTRALIA
Shark-proof suit tested
A university is testing new materials designed to lessen the impact of shark bites, researchers said yesterday, in a project aimed at reducing fatalities and easing the nerves of swimmers. Researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide have received government funding to test a new neoprene, a synthetic rubber commonly used in wetsuits, against the force of a bite from several species, including the great white shark. “When a shark bite occurs, it can have severe physical, mental, social and economic consequences. It is therefore important to keep developing new means of reducing shark bite risks and ensure the efficacy of such new products,” professor Charlie Huveneers said.
SYRIA
Suicide bomber hits al-Qaeda
Opposition activists said a woman blew herself up in Idlib yesterday, killing two people, outside an administration office linked to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an al-Qaeda group. The blast wounded others, the Local Coordination Committees said. The attack comes weeks after the al-Qaeda-linked group captured wide parts of northern Syria in battles with Turkey-backed opposition fighters. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another group monitoring the civil war, said the bomber exchanged fire with guards before blowing herself up.
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CHINA
EU team visits Xinjiang
An EU delegation has visited the western region of Xinjiang, a rare chance to gather evidence on controversial re-education camps that have drawn harsh criticism from rights groups and Western powers, officials said on Monday. The team was supervised by officials this month during the three-day trip, but managed to gather information that the EU said builds on “compelling and mutually consistent” reports of rights abuses in the region. This was the first visit to Xinjiang by a multinational body such as the EU since Beijing acknowledged the existence of the camps.
CHINA
Car-attack killer executed
Authorities yesterday executed a man who killed 15 people after ramming a car into a crowded square in Hunan Province’s Hengdong last year. Yang Zanyun (陽讚雲) in September last year ploughed a Land Rover into pedestrians at a public square before slashing at people with a shovel and dagger. Fifteen people were killed and 43 others were injured. The Hengyang Intermediate People’s Court yesterday said it “carried out the death penalty” on Yang for “endangering public security through dangerous methods.”
IRAN
Missile range not to increase
Iran has no intention to increase the range of its missiles, but will continue working on its satellite technology to improve accuracy, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani said yesterday. “Iran has no scientific or operational restriction for increasing the range of its military missiles, but based on its defensive doctrine, it is continuously working on increasing the precision of the missiles, and has no intention to increase their range,” Shamkhani was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. “The enemies say Iran’s missile power should be eliminated, but we have repeatedly said our missile capabilities are not negotiable,” Minister of Defense Amir Hatami was quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency.
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