PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Police unit sent to Manus
Paramilitary police have been deployed for three months to a refugee encampment on Manus Island amid “daily” suicide attempts and rising tension there, Manus Provincial Police Commander David Yapu said yesterday. The unit has a reputation for brutal tactics and has in the past been accused of rape and murder. The would-be refugees have been refused access to Australia and moved to the remote island and the Pacific nation of Nauru, where they have remained in limbo for years. They had hoped that an expected win for Australia’s opposition Labor Party in May 18 elections would open up new options for resettlement. The surprise return to power of the conservative coalition of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison prompted a rash of suicide attempts among asylum-seekers on Manus.
HUNGARY
Hopes fade after boat crash
Hopes of finding any more survivors from a boat accident on the Danube river in Budapest were fading yesterday, with 21 people still missing most of them South Korean tourists. Police and army boats continued search operations for a second night, but their work has been hampered by high river levels and a strong current after weeks of heavy rain. The Mermaid sightseeing boat overturned after colliding with a much larger river cruise ship on a busy stretch of the Danube on Wednesday evening. At least seven South Korean tourists were killed and 21 people remain missing — including the boat’s captain and a crew member, both Hungarian. Only seven people are known to have survived. Late on Thursday, police announced that the captain of the larger ship, the 135m four-story Viking Sigyn, had been taken into custody and “questioned as a suspect ... in relation to ‘endangering waterborne traffic resulting in multiple deaths.’”
COLOMBIA
Venezuelan aid redistributed
US-supplied humanitarian aid that was earmarked for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido is now to be distributed in Colombia, officials said on Thursday. Colombia’s government said that it had reached the decision with the US and representatives of Guaido, because of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s continued “blocking” of the aid. In a statement, the national disaster agency said that some of the aid would now be redistributed to some of the 1.2 million Venezuelan migrants who have crossed into Colombia fleeing hyperinflation and shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Poor Colombians would also benefit, it said. Whatever remaining amounts of aid not distributed inside Colombia or directly controlled by the US Agency for International Development would continue to be stored on behalf of Guaido, the agency said.
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