UNITED KINGDOM
EU too ‘stubborn’ on Brexit
The government yesterday warned the EU that it needed to change its “stubborn” position on Brexit if a no-deal exit was to be avoided. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Dominic Raab said he wanted a deal, but the EU had to change its position. “We want a good deal with our EU partners,” he told the BBC, adding that there had been a “series of fairly stubborn positions staked out by the EU.” If the EU sticks to that line then the nation needs to be prepared for a no-deal Brexit, he said. “We want a good deal with EU partners and friends but that must involve the abolition of the undemocratic backstop. What the prime minister has instructed and the Cabinet has accepted is a turbo-charging of those preparations,” he added.
GERMANY
Man rescued from cave
Rescuers early yesterday freed one man trapped in Falkenstein Cave in the south of the country by rising water and are working to free a second. The two — a mountain guide and a client — were trapped about 650m inside the cave in on Sunday evening as rising water, a result of heavy rain in the region, cut off their path back to the entrance. Rescuers reached the cavity where they were sheltering and supplied them with blankets and food.
FRANCE
Tourist killed in shooting
Police are hunting at least one gunman after a vacationer and two others were killed in a shooting near a service station in the town of Ollioules near the Mediterranean. Ollioules Mayor Robert Beneventi said the traveler and her husband were caught in a settling of scores between local criminals in Sunday night’s shooting. Beneventi told local newspaper Var-Matin that the other victims were local youths known to police who appeared to be the target of the attack. The vacationer’s husband was injured.
ROMANIA
Man says he killed teens
A man has admitted to killing two teenage girls including a 15-year-old whose disappearance last week shook the country and led to the national police chief being fired, the suspect’s lawyer said on Sunday. The suspect, named as Gheorghe Dinca, 65, “has confessed his crimes,” lawyer Alexandru Bogdan was quoted as saying by Agerpres news agency. After refusing to answer any questions, Dinca eventually confessed to the murders of Alexandra, who vanished on Wednesday, and 19-year-old Luiza, who was missing since April. Alexandra was snatched on Wednesday as she tried to hitch-hike home to Dobrosloveni. On Thursday morning, she managed to ring an emergency number and give clues to police about the place she was being held. She yelled “he’s coming, he’s coming” before the line was cut, police said.
UNITED STATES
Body of two-year-old found
The body of a missing Oregon boy whose parents died in an apparent murder-suicide is believed to have been found in a remote area of Montana, police said. Police in Medford, Oregon, said Montana authorities reported finding the body on Sunday thought to be that of two-year-old Aiden Salcido, the son of Daniel Salcido and Hannah Janiak, who had formerly lived in Medford. Aiden was the subject of an intense search after his parents were found dead on Wednesday in Montana. Witnesses called in tips after seeing the story on the news and were instrumental in helping to locate a remote camp believed to have been occupied by the family, Medford police said.
AUSTRALIA
East Timor pact approved
Parliament yesterday voted to implement a maritime border treaty with East Timor that is expected to provide a major boost that nation by establishing new arrangements for sharing revenue from the Greater Sunrise gas fields in the Timor Sea. The vote came just days after East Timor’s parliament voted in favor of ratifying the treaty, which the two countries signed at the UN in March last year. It was the first-ever reached under a special conciliation mechanism of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
VIETNAM
Web-gambling group nabbed
Police have detained more than 380 Chinese for allegedly operating an illegal online gambling operation considered the largest of its kind in the country. They were arrested while allegedly running around-the-clock Web sites with transactions estimated at 3 billion yuan (US$435 million) in Haiphong, a statement on the Ministry of Public Security’s Web site said. “This is a criminal organization with new and sophisticated ways of operating in cyberspace under the cover of foreign investment enterprises in Vietnam,” the ministry said. Police seized about 2,000 smartphones, 533 computers, bank cards, cash and documents, it said.
JORDAN
UNRWA under scrutiny
An internal ethics report has alleged mismanagement and abuses of authority at the highest levels of an Amman-based agency for Palestinian refugees, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), including Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl. The report by the agency’s ethics department is being reviewed by UN investigators. The allegations include senior management engaging in “sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority, for personal gain, to suppress legitimate dissent, and to otherwise achieve their personal objectives.” UNRWA said it is cooperating fully with the investigation.
SOUTH KOREA
Hormuz mission mulled
Seoul plans to join a US-led maritime force in the Middle East by sending a naval unit, which includes a destroyer, to help guard oil tankers sailing through the Strait of Hormuz, the Maekyung newspaper reported yesterday. Citing an unidentified senior official, the paper said the government had decided to send the anti-piracy Cheonghae unit that has operating in the Gulf of Aden since 2009, possibly along with helicopters.
SOUTH KOREA
Northern fishers head home
The Unification Ministry said three North Koreans whose wooden fishing boat crossed the sea border between the two rivals on Saturday would be allowed to return home. The trio were to head back in their boat later yesterday, in accordance with their wishes, it said. A Ministry of National Defense official said the boat was intercepted on Saturday because a white towel was tied to its mast in a potential sign that those on board might want to defect. The trio said they used the towel to prevent any clash with other ships and had gone off course by mistake and wanted to go home.
NIGERIA
Sixty slain in attack
Suspected Boko Haram extremists killed more than 60 people in an attack on people leaving a funeral in northeastern village, a local official said on Sunday. Eleven others were wounded during the attack, the official 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