■ THAILAND
Three Muslim men killed
Suspected separatist rebels have shot dead three Muslim men in separate attacks across the insurgency-hit south, police said yesterday. Two unidentified men on a motorcycle shot dead a 28-year-old villager in front of his house in Narathiwat Province late on Saturday. Hours later in nearby Yala Province, the son of a local politician was killed by gunmen, while a third Muslim was shot dead elsewhere in the same province as he returned home from the local mosque, police reported. More that 3,000 people have been killed since separatist violence erupted in the south in January 2004.
■ CAMBODIA
US investigation called for
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy called yesterday for the US FBI to renew its probe into a grenade attack that killed at least 16 people more than a decade ago. Sam Rainsy addressed supporters outside the parliament building in Phnom Penh, where exactly 11 years ago four grenades were hurled into a crowd of anti-government protesters, wounding at least 120 people including a US citizen. Despite the government's insistence that the case is still open, no one has been arrested in connection with the bloody attack.
■ INDONESIA
Soldier shot to death
A soldier was shot dead in Aceh Province where a 29-year separatist conflict ended with a peace pact in 2005, a report in Jakarta said yesterday. Two men on a motorcycle early on Saturday shot into a car driven by First Sergeant Ujang in the provincial capital Banda Aceh, killing him, the Media Indonesia newspaper quoted Aceh military chief Major General Supiadin as saying. Another soldier and two civilians were also in the car but one of the civilians, a former guerrilla, ran away from the scene and authorities were searching for him, Supiadin said. Violence has been rare in the province since the 2005 peace pact was signed.
■ MYANMAR
Official to visit India
The second-highest ranking member of the ruling junta, Senior General Maung Aye, will visit India in the near future, state-run media said yesterday. The Myanmar-language Myanma Ahlin newspaper did not give a date for the visit of Maung Aye, who is vice chairman of the military council. But diplomatic sources here said it would begin on Wednesday. An aid agreement on the US$120 million Kaladan project is expected to be signed during the five-day visit. India's funding would allow for the upgrading of waterways and highways along the Kaladan river and development of Sittway port in Myanmar's Rakhine state.
■ ITALY
Berlusconi makes plea
Poll favorite former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi urged Italians on Saturday in Taormina not to "waste their ballots" on small parties in next month's election, fearing a messy voting system could deprive him of a clear-cut victory. With just over two weeks to go before the April 13 to April 14 vote, the latest survey before a ban on opinion polls came into force on Saturday gave Berlusconi a lead of 8.6 percent on his rival Walter Veltroni. If confirmed, such a result would grant the conservative media tycoon's People of Freedom party and his allies a comfortable majority in the lower house of parliament.
■ ITALY
Protesters oppose tunnel
A project to bore a tunnel through the Italian Alps to create a high-speed rail link between Turin and Lyon, France, was to face a new protest yesterday. Diehard opponents of the project were to line up in Chiomonte to buy a symbolic square meter of land each along the route of the planned rail line. More than 1,250 activists are involved in the initiative to oppose the tunnel, which has an estimated pricetag of 7.6 billion euros (US$12 billion). "You don't buy a Ferrari when you can't afford a dentist for your children," organizer Alberto Perino said, adding that it would create longstanding debt as well as "causing considerable ecological damage by draining the valley's water resources."
■ BELGIUM
Hugo Claus dies, age 78
Hugo Claus, one of the country's most renowned authors despite his often caustic portrayals of his nation, particularly its ambiguous role in World War II, died on March 19. He was 78 years old. Claus, who had Alzheimer's disease, died at Middelheim Hospital in Antwerp. "He himself picked the moment of his death and asked for euthanasia," his wife, Veerle De Wit, said in a statement. Euthanasia is legal in the country. The author of more than 20 novels, more than 60 plays and several thousand poems, Claus was best known for his 1983 novel, The Sorrow of Belgium.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Heathrow bans BBC
British Airways said on Saturday that delays at London Heathrow airport's new terminal would continue, amid claims that reporters had been banned from the terminal. The airline said about 13 percent of short-haul and European flights in and out of Terminal 5 would be canceled today. So far, nearly 250 flights have been canceled since Thursday because of computer glitches affecting the new baggage handling system. The BBC said that it had been banned from filming at the terminal, where hundreds of passengers were facing long delays. Sky News television also said it had been locked out.
■ TAJIKISTAN
Murder suspects arrested
Police seized three suspects in the murder of Russian reporter Ilyas Shurpayev, who was found stabbed in his Moscow apartment last week, the Tajik interior ministry said yesterday. The suspects "got acquainted with Shurpayev by accident and the journalist invited them into his house," an official in the interior ministry said. Police "seized proof, including the gold watch, money and the mobile telephone that belonged to Shurpayev, as well as dozens of thousands of rubles," the official said. Shurpayev, who reported on unrest in the Caucasus, was found stabbed to death last week.
■ UNITED STATES
Drunken man in trash truck
William Bowen woke up after a night of drinking with friends and realized he was inside a trash-collection truck full of waste. The driver had just emptied a trash bin into his truck and was about to activate its compactor when he heard Bowen screaming. "He looked up and this gentleman was standing out the top of our truck," said Larry Green, market safety supervisor for the Rumpke waste disposal company. Green said the only thing Bowen said to the driver was that he was cold. "This gentleman was extremely intoxicated," he said. Bowen told police he had been drinking with friends at a Muncie, Indiana, bar until about 3am on Thursday.
■ CANADA
Fishing trawler capsizes
A disabled fishing trawler getting a tow from a coast guard vessel slammed into a piece of ice and capsized in the icy waters of the Gulf of St Lawrence, killing three seal hunters and leaving one missing. The vessel was headed toward a large seal herd on Saturday in the Cabot Strait between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland as part of the seal hunt season that opened on Friday. The 12m fishing boat from Iles-de-la-Madeleine in Quebec, carrying a crew of six, had reported steering problems late on Friday north of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, when the coast guard ship took it in tow. Bruno-Pierre Bourque, whose father died in Saturday's accident but who survived it himself, said a combination of speed and inattention by the coast guard crew caused the fishing boat to flip over.
■ CHILE
Police clash with protesters
Police clashed with demonstrators on Saturday night in several working-class neighborhoods that were the scene of violent protests to commemorate the killing of two brothers under the 1973 to 1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. One police officer was shot in the leg. Police said 27 demonstrators had been arrested by midnight. Six other officers were injured when their vehicle crashed as it rushed to one of the many intersections blocked by the protesters with blazing barricades. The demonstrators tossed firebombs at police vehicles and shots were heard at several points in the city. Similar protests occur every year on this date, which leftist groups call the "Day of the Young Combatant," remembering the police killings of leftist brothers Rafael and Eduardo Vergara on March 29, 1985.
■ PERU
Quake strikes near Lima
A 5.4-magnitude earthquake rattled the coast near Lima on Saturday, causing alarm and minor damage but no fatalities, officials said. The US Geological Survey said the quake struck under the Pacific Ocean at 7:51am, 15km west of Lima, shaking startled residents out of bed. Five houses collapsed in Lima, Civil Defense chief Luis Palomino said to reporters. No injuries were reported, but several people were being treated for emotional trauma. "You tend to sleep late on Saturdays. We all went running out of the house into the street," said Mirta Guzman, a 52-year-old mother of six in the Barranco district of Lima. She said her house, which was not damaged by the quake, is more than 100 years old and made of delicate adobe. Traffic was interrupted on Lima's primary coastal highway for more than an hour as police cleared rocks and sand that had spilled across several stretches of the roadway.
CHAGOS ISLANDS: Recently elected Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam told lawmakers that the contents of negotiations are ‘unknown’ to the government Mauritius’ new prime minister ordered an independent review of a deal with the UK involving a strategically important US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean, placing the agreement under fresh scrutiny. Under a pact signed last month, the UK ceded sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, while retaining control of Diego Garcia — the island where the base is situated. The deal was signed by then-Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Oct. 3 — a month before elections in Mauritius in which Navin Ramgoolam became premier. “I have asked for an independent review of the
Czech intelligence chief Michal Koudelka has spent decades uncovering Russian spy networks, sabotage attempts and disinformation campaigns against Europe. Speaking in an interview from a high-security compound on the outskirts of Prague, he is now warning allies that pushing Kyiv to accept significant concessions to end the war in Ukraine would only embolden the Kremlin. “Russia would spend perhaps the next 10 to 15 years recovering from its huge human and economic losses and preparing for the next target, which is central and eastern Europe,” said Koudelka, a major general who heads the country’s Security Information Service. “If Ukraine loses, or is forced
France on Friday showed off to the world the gleaming restored interior of Notre-Dame cathedral, a week before the 850-year-old medieval edifice reopens following painstaking restoration after the devastating 2019 fire. French President Emmanuel Macron conducted an inspection of the restoration, broadcast live on television, saying workers had done the “impossible” by healing a “national wound” after the fire on April 19, 2019. While every effort has been made to remain faithful to the original look of the cathedral, an international team of designers and architects have created a luminous space that has an immediate impact on the visitor. The floor shimmers and
THIRD IN A ROW? An expert said if the report of a probe into the defense official is true, people would naturally ask if it would erode morale in the military Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) has been placed under investigation for corruption, a report said yesterday, the latest official implicated in a crackdown on graft in the country’s military. Citing current and former US officials familiar with the situation, British newspaper the Financial Times said that the investigation into Dong was part of a broader probe into military corruption. Neither the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Chinese embassy in Washington replied to a request for confirmation yesterday. If confirmed, Dong would be the third Chinese defense minister in a row to fall under investigation for corruption. A former navy
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