JAPAN
Luxurious pileup ends race
An outing of luxury sportscar enthusiasts ended in an expensive freeway pileup — smashing a stunning eight Ferraris, a Lamborghini and two Mercedes. Police said they believe the accident on Sunday was touched off when the driver of one of the Ferraris tried to change lanes and hit the median barrier. He spun across the freeway and the other cars collided while trying to avoid hitting his car. Video of the crash aired by NTV, a major national network, showed several smashed, bright red Ferraris cluttering the freeway. No one was seriously injured, but police in Yamaguchi Prefecture said 10 people were treated for bruises and cuts. Police said 14 cars were involved altogether.
Photo: Reuters/Kyodo
THAILAND
King calls for unity
King Bhumibol Adulyadej called for his countrymen to unite against the worst floods in half a century. The monarch spoke to mark his 84th birthday and amid deep political divisions plaguing the country. Bhumibol spoke yesterday at the ceremonial Grand Palace for about five minutes after being driven from a nearby hospital where he has been staying for more than two years. More than one-fifth of the nation’s 64 million people have been affected by the ongoing flood crisis, which began in late July. The king was originally hospitalized in September 2009 with a lung inflammation. Official statements said he remained at the hospital for physical therapy and nourishment to recover his strength.
CHINA
Smog cancels Beijing flights
Beijing authorities cancelled hundreds of flights and shut highways as thick smog descended on the nation’s capital on Sunday and yesterday, reducing visibility at one of the world’s busiest airports. Air quality in Beijing reached “hazardous” levels yesterday, according to the US embassy, which conducts its own measurements, while Xinhua news agency said pollution was likely to reach “dangerous” levels. Nearly 400 flights were canceled on Sunday, state television network CCTV reported. By midday yesterday, Beijing’s main airport — the second busiest in the world — had canceled 132 domestic and five international flights, according to its Web site.
PHILIPPINES
Alleged poachers charged
Six Chinese fishermen accused of poaching endangered sea turtles were charged in a court yesterday, part of efforts to protect threatened wildlife along the country’s coastline. Authorities discovered a batch of giant green turtles after intercepting the fishermen’s speedboat in waters off the western province of Palawan on Friday, military spokesman Major Niel Estrella said. A joint team from the navy, coast guard and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources made the seizure. Nine of the turtles were already dead, but three were released alive back into the waters after being tagged, said Glenda Cadigal, a wildlife specialist at the Palawan Council. Authorities filed criminal charges under the Wildlife Act and Fisheries Code at the Palawan Regional Trial Court in Puerto Princessa, said Adelina Villena, chief lawyer for the government’s Palawan Council for Sustainable Development. If found guilty on all charges, the fishermen would face up to 24 years in prison.
SYRIA
Free press blogger arrested
Authorities arrested a blogger on Sunday who was traveling to Jordan to attend a conference on freedom of the press in the region, her friends said. Razan Ghazzawi, 30, is the latest among scores of bloggers and journalists arrested since the break out of street protests against President Bashar al-Assad. “She was arrested as she presented her passport to immigration at the Syrian border post of Nassib to cross to Jordan,” one of her friends said. Ghazzawi’s last posting on www.razanghazzwi.com reported the release of fellow blogger Hussein Ghreir, freed last week after 37 days in jail. Ghazzawi said Ghreir was lucky because he had spent most of his incarceration in a regular jail, compared with detention at secret police dungeons, home to “the worst kinds of torture.”
CROATIA
Center-left bloc wins poll
The center-left opposition bloc won Sunday’s general elections by a wide margin, according to partial official results based on more than 50 percent of votes counted nationwide. The four-party coalition led by the Social Democrats will hold 76 seats in the 151-member parliament against 47 seats for the ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), the results showed. The electoral commission released percentages for each constituency, while national TV translated them into seats.
SLOVENIA
Center-left wins election
A new center-left party headed by Ljubljana’s popular millionaire mayor won a surprise victory in Slovenian elections, the electoral commission announced yesterday, with 99.8 percent of votes counted. Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Jankovic’s Positive Slovenia, created two months ago specially for Sunday’s elections, won 28.53 percent of the vote, against 26.26 percent for the center-right favorites, the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) of former prime minister Janez Jansa. Crashing to third place in the struggling eurozone member state were the governing Social Democrats of Prime Minister Borut Pahor, with just 10.48 percent, compared with 30.5 percent during the last election in 2008.
NIGERIA
Muslim extremists raid town
Gunmen from a radical Muslim sect raided a town in the north of the country early on Sunday morning, bombing police stations and robbing banks in an attack that killed at least six people, authorities said. The attack in Azare in Bauchi State mirrored other recent attacks by the sect known as Boko Haram, showing their ability to strike at will in the Muslim north. The attack also shows the group remains focused on raising cash for future attacks in the oil-rich nation. Sect members bombed two police stations in the city and robbed local branches for bank chains Guaranty Trust Bank PLC and Intercontinental Bank PLC, Bauchi police commissioner Ikechukwu Aduba said. One police officer, one soldier and four civilians were killed during the five-hour attack, he said.
IRAN
US spy drone shot down
The country’s armed forces have shot down an unmanned US spy plane that violated the nation’s airspace along the eastern border, the official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday. An unidentified military official quoted in the report warned of a strong and crushing response to any violations of the country’s airspace by US drone aircraft.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
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