JAPAN
Craft to land on asteroid
A spacecraft is approaching the surface of an asteroid about 280 million kilometers from Earth. Hayabusa2 began its approach at 1:15pm, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said yesterday. The start was delayed for about five hours for a safety check, but the uncrewed craft is still due to touch down as scheduled this morning. It is to attempt to collect material from the asteroid that could provide clues about the origin of the solar system and life on Earth. Hayabusa2 is aiming for a 6m-wide strip to avoid obstacles on the asteroid, which is about 900m in diameter.
PHILIPPINES
Maternity leave expanded
President Rodrigo Duterte has expanded leave benefits for working new mothers, a move that could bring more women into the workforce in the nation with the least female participation in Southeast Asia. A new law has increased paid maternity leave to 105 days from 60, of which seven can be given to fathers, Senator Risa Hontiveros said in a statement yesterday. Single mothers would get additional 15 days. Luring and keeping more women in the job market is among government initiatives outlined by National Economic and Development Authority Director-General Ernesto Pernia to boost labor force participation, which dropped last year. The World Bank estimates more than half of Philippine women are not in the labor force.
PAKISTAN
Rain, flooding kills 26
Torrential rains lashed several cities yesterday, triggering flash floods and leaving at least 26 dead, many swept away by the waters or killed when their roofs collapsed before dawn, authorities said. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province Disaster Management Authority said that 14 people, including children, were killed. Emergency workers were trying to rescue people from flooded parts of Lasbella, authority spokesman Imran Zarqoon said. At least nine people were killed in three incidents of roofs collapsing amid the rains, four of them in the city of Multan, police and rescue services said.
CHINA
Genetics firm pulls out
Thermo Fisher Scientific said it would no longer sell or service genetic sequencers in Xinjiang following criticism that they were used for surveillance that enabled human rights abuses, the Wall Street Journal reported. The US company cited its “values, ethics code and policies,” the Journal said. Thermo Fisher faced criticism from human rights groups and US lawmakers for supplying the equipment used to identify individuals in Xinjiang.
SYRIA
Last evacuations expected
The last civilians were expected to be evacuated from the Islamic State (IS) group’s final enclave in the east of the country yesterday, clearing the way for US-backed forces to attack militants holed up inside, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said. The village of Baghouz at the Iraqi border is the last scrap of territory left to IS in the Euphrates valley region. Taking it would nudge the eight-year civil war toward a new phase, with US President Donald Trump’s pledge to withdraw troops leaving a security vacuum that other powers could seek to fill. SDF media office head Mustafa Bali told reporters that the SDF would attack once the civilian evacuation is complete. Bali did not say how much more time was needed to finish off the remaining IS militants, nor did he give a fresh estimate of how many fighters remained.
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