MALAYSIA
Flooding kills two
Flooding in the south has killed two people and more than 50,000 have fled to relief shelters as rains are still falling. A relief coordinator in Johor state, the worst hit, said two women drowned when their cars were swept away by floodwaters over the weekend. More than 47,800 people were staying in 265 shelters yesterday. The relief official declined to be named citing protocol. Evacuations also took place in Malacca, Negri Sembilan and Pahang states, as well as Sabah state on Borneo because of flooding.
JAPAN
Volcano shoots ash 2km up
A volcano in the south shot ash and rocks up to 2,000m into the air, with the blast shattering windows kilometers away in a huge explosion, officials said. Authorities widened the danger zone around the 1,421m Shinmoedake volcano in the Kirishima range, which has been belching smoke and ash since Wednesday last week. The latest blast came shortly before 8am yesterday. Flying shards from broken hospital windows left a 92-year-old woman with hand and facial injuries, a Kirishima city official said, adding that almost 200 windows were smashed at schools and public halls.
SOUTH KOREA
Exodus gets under way
Millions began traveling to their hometowns yesterday as the Lunar New Year exodus got under way. More than 31 million people, 62 percent of the population, were to be on the move between yesterday and Sunday, up 3.2 percent from a year earlier, the transport ministry predicted. Highways were jammed on the eve of the holiday, but travel to and from hometowns was expected to cause fewer headaches this year because of the long break. About 2.6 million cars have already left the capital or were to leave later yesterday, the Korea Expressway Corp said. Railway authorities said tickets for trains departing Seoul yesterday had already sold out, with 414,000 passengers set to travel by rail during the day.
PHILIPPINES
Ampatuan Sr to stand trial
The patriarch of a political clan must stand trial for the murder of 57 people in November 2009 after his petition to have the charges dropped was thrown out, a lawyer said yesterday. The Court of Appeal dismissed Andal Ampatuan Sr’s claims of abuse of discretion and failure to observe due process in filing murder charges against him and his sons. Ampatuan and one of his sons, Andal Jr, both face the murder charges, said Prima Jesusa Quinsayas, a lawyer for the families of some of those killed. “There are no more obstacles for his trial and we hope it will start within the month,” she added.
FRANCE
Chirac wife denies claims
The wife of former president Jacques Chirac has denied he is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and is too frail to face corruption charges. Bernadette Chirac said she was “scandalized” by the reports, calling them an attack on her husband’s privacy. The former first lady’s outburst came after the Journal du Dimanche said Chirac, 78, suffered from memory lapses, and quoted unnamed friends as saying his wife feared he had Alzheimer’s. She told radio station Europe 1 the reports were “a lie” and that although he had some health problems, he could also be “dazzling.” “Doctors have said he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s and I believe them ... if my husband was suffering from this illness I would not hesitate to say so,” she said.
UNITED STATES
Envoy quits Beijing post
US ambassador to China Jon Huntsman Jr delivered a letter of resignation on Monday to President Barack Obama and intends to leave his position on April 30, a White House official said, clearing the way for him to explore a potential 2012 Republican presidential bid. Huntsman has not decided whether to move forward with a candidacy, associates said, but he has had several conversations with a circle of political advisers who are waiting in the wings if he decides to run.
CUBA
Hospital workers jailed
Lengthy prison terms were on Monday handed to 13 workers at a mental hospital where 26 patients died in a cold snap a year ago. The Havana Provincial Court slapped the longest sentence, 15 years, on the director of the hospital, Wilfredo Castillo, for “misappropriation” and “dereliction of duty,” an official statement read out on the state news broadcast said. The other sentences ranged from five to 15 years. According to the official account, 26 patients died when temperatures plunged to 3.9°C in January last year.
HAITI
Aristide eligible for passport
Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is eligible for a passport but has not applied for one, officials said on Monday. That followed a letter from the ousted leader’s US lawyer, Ira Kurzban, telling officials at Haiti’s foreign affairs and interior ministries that he understood they had agreed to issue Aristide a diplomatic passport. However, Haitian Interior Minister Paul-Antoine Bien-Aime said in an official letter, sent later on Monday, that no passport had been requested.
Canada
Dogs victims of ‘bloodbath’
An organization that fights animal abuse is calling the slaughter of 100 sled dogs by an outdoor adventure company in British Columbia a bloodbath and police are investigating. The British Columbia SPCA’s manager of animal cruelty investigations said on Monday an Outdoor Adventures Whistler employee was told to cull the dogs. Vancouver radio station CKNW radio is reporting that the company expected more sledding business in an anticipated post-Olympics tourism boom that never materialized and the sled dogs were killed.
Mexico
Shark attacks tourist
A Canadian woman lost an arm and suffered serious injuries to a leg after being attacked by a shark while swimming just off the resort of Cancun, local media reported. Nicole Ruth, 38, was hospitalized and had “her left arm and thigh detached,” the El Diario del Yucatan newspaper said. Apparently the shark was near the shore to give birth and the woman got too close, the paper said.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
FIREWALLS: ‘Democracy doesn’t mean that the loud minority is automatically right,’ the German defense minister said following the US vice president’s remarks US Vice President JD Vance met the leader of a German far-right party during a visit to Munich, Germany, on Friday, nine days before a German election. During his visit he lectured European leaders about the state of democracy and said there is no place for “firewalls.” Vance met with Alice Weidel, the coleader and candidate for chancellor of the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, his office said. Mainstream German parties say they would not work with the party. That stance is often referred to as a “firewall.” Polls put AfD in second place going into the
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