PHILIPPINES
Thirty missing in storm
Thirty fishermen were missing and hundreds of travelers were stranded yesterday after Tropical Storm Mawar dumped heavy rains across the nation, forcing flight and ship cancelations. The storm blanketed large parts of the southern part of Luzon and central Visayas, with up to 25mm of rain an hour overnight, the state weather bureau said. At least two domestic flights were canceled, while more than 500 people were stranded in ports after the coast guard prevented passenger ferries from sailing, disaster relief agencies said. “Thirty fishermen have also gone missing from the island of Catanduanes after apparently getting caught at sea by the storm,” Benito Ramos, a civil defense official, said over local radio. He said search-and-rescue operations were under way, though the coast guard could not carry out an air search owing to bad visibility. About 20 storms slam into the country from the Pacific every year, causing heavy casualties and damage. Mawar is the first this year.
BHUTAN
Tuesdays ‘pedestrians’ day’
The Himalayan kingdom is making every Tuesday “pedestrians’ day” with motorists banned from town centers. The first day of forcing car owners to walk, cycle or take public transport will be on June 5 to coincide with World Environment Day, Kuensel newspaper reported on its Web site. “People will be compelled to start the day early and plan ahead to be in time for meetings and appointments because of the longer time it would take to get there,” the newspaper said of the “wonderful plan.” The nation has few large urban areas, but traffic has steadily increased in the capital, Thimphu, where a sharp increase in SUVs and other cars has led to unprecedented traffic jams on its narrow streets.
AUSTRALIA
Court overrules religion
A court ordered the parents of a cancer-stricken child to put aside their religious beliefs and allow her life-saving treatment including a blood transfusion, reports said yesterday. The four-year-old’s parents had refused the transfusion because it was against the teachings of their Jehovah’s Witness faith, but South Australia’s Supreme Court upheld an application by the hospital forcing them to relent. Justice Richard White ruled that it was “appropriate and indeed necessary” for the girl, who was diagnosed with leukemia on Monday, to receive a blood transfusion. “I’m satisfied that there are no alternatives to the provision of a blood transfusion,” White said, according to the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper. “Without a blood transfusion there’s a very high prospect [the girl] will die,” he added. Doctors had told the court that the girl had just weeks to live if she were not treated and could suffer heart, brain and kidney damage even if she survived without a transfusion. Her father wept as he spoke of the family’s adherence to “strict Bible principles.” “We want the best possible treatment for [her] and the hospital are doing a great job. The only thing we don’t consent to is the issue of blood,” he said.
INDONESIA
Elephants poisoned
An environmentalist says three endangered Sumatran elephants have been poisoned and found dead within a palm oil plantation in the East Aceh District. Rono Wiranata from the FAKTA non-government group said workers at the state-run plantation were believed to have placed the poison on palm fruits. The dead three and five-year-old elephants were found on Thursday in separate locations. Wiranata cited plantation workers in saying more elephants may die from the poison. Five endangered Sumatran elephants have been found poisoned in Aceh Province since April. Fewer than 3,000 Sumatran elephants are left in the wild. Environmentalists say they could be extinct within three decades unless they are protected.
CHINA
Child-traffickers arrested
Authorities have broken up a child trafficking ring, arresting 76 suspects and rescuing more than 30 children. Xinhua news agency reported yesterday that railway police in Kunming started an investigation last year after discovering several abducted infants at the local rail station and on trains. The trafficking ring was operating in several provinces. Trafficking in children is a big problem in the country, where a traditional preference for male heirs and a strict one-child policy has driven a thriving market in baby boys. Unwanted baby girls also are sold or abandoned by parents who want sons. More than 8,000 abducted children were rescued last year alone.
INDONESIA
Quake hits eastern town
A moderate magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck West Papua Province on Friday, sending panicked residents rushing outdoors, the US Geological Survey reported. The quake struck at 3:56pm near the eastern town of Manokwaria. People left their homes and buildings, but there were no immediate reports of damage. “I was outside my house when the ground began to shake. I ran indoors to grab my three grandchildren who were napping inside and rushed back out,” said Leo Ayomi, a 60-year-old grandmother. The quake struck 92km west of Manokwari at a depth of 24km.
UNITED KINGDOM
Killer pleads insanity
A 21-year-old British man has admitted shooting an Indian student in northwest England — a death that shocked people across the UK and in his home country. Anuj Bidve, a postgraduate microelectronics student at Lancaster University, was shot in the head at close range while on a visit with friends to Manchester in December. No motive for the shooting has been disclosed. Bidve’s parents traveled from India to attend a court hearing on Friday, at which suspect Kiaran Stapleton admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Prosecutors did not accept his plea, and Stapleton — who gave his name at an earlier court hearing as “Psycho” — was ordered to stand trial for murder. The trial is due to begin on June 25 at Manchester Crown Court.
BENIN
Kidnapped US man freed
A spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior confirmed a US citizen who was kidnapped earlier this month has been freed and two of his abductors are in custody. Franck Kinninvo, the head of the ministry’s communications division, said that the US man was liberated on Thursday. Police have taken into custody two of the kidnappers, though more may be at large. Kinninvo said that the man was lured through an Internet scam. He came from the neighboring nation of Togo and disappeared shortly after crossing the immigration post. The official said he does not believe that a ransom was paid for the man’s release and denied speculation that a Nigerian militant group, Boko Haram, was involved.
MALI
Tuaregs, Islamists in talks
Rebel Tuareg and Islamist leaders in the north tried to patch up their differences by holding talks late on Friday, after the Tuaregs said they had rejected a deal to form a breakaway state. Leaders of the Tuareg National Liberation Movement of Azawad (MNLA) and the Islamist Ansar Dine met in the northeastern town of Gao after the rebel MNLA said it had given up on the week-old deal, because of the Islamists’ insistence on implementing Shariah law. Walil Ag Cherif of Ansar Dine told of the talks by telephone, without giving details. The meeting was confirmed by the Tuareg side. Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) had refused to back off from their demand for the implementation of radical Islamic law, which the MNLA has already rejected. “The MNLA’s political leadership, faced with Ansar Dine’s intransigence on applying Shariah law in Azawad, and to remain faithful to its resolutely secular position, rejects the deal dated May 26, 2012 made with this group and declares everything pertaining to it null and void,” said a statement.
AFGHANISTAN
Four aid workers rescued
NATO says two foreign aid workers and their two Afghan colleagues, kidnapped and held by insurgents in northern Afghanistan, have been rescued in an early morning raid. The two foreign aid workers — Helen Johnston and Moragwe Oirere — and two of their Afghan colleagues were kidnapped on May 22 in Badakhshan Province. They worked for Medair, a humanitarian non-governmental organization based near Lausanne, Switzerland. US General John Allen, the top commander of US and NATO forces in the country, said in a statement that coalition forces conducted the rescue mission early yesterday with the support of the Afghan Ministry of Interior.
UNITED STATES
Bear crashes graduation
The last day of classes at a Bakersfield, California, school and a graduation ceremony at a neighboring school were interrupted by an unexpected guest: a black bear that wandered onto school property. Kern County Animal Control officers say the young black bear’s arrival forced students who were outside to return to their classrooms, but the animal kept its distance and nobody was in danger. Within minutes, officers cornered the animal at an apartment complex, hit it with a stun gun and loaded it into a truck. They then released it back into the wild. Authorities say the bear followed the Kern River into town.
UNITED STATES
Book of Mormon missing
A first-edition copy of the Book of Mormon that draws hundreds of missionaries to an Arizona bookstore has gone missing. The Arizona Republic reported that Mesa police were investigating the disappearance, which happened sometime during the Memorial Day weekend. Helen Schlie, owner of Rare and Out of Print Books and Art, said the last time she saw the book was when she put it away in a fireproof box on Friday night. She said it was not discovered missing until Monday afternoon when two Mormon missionaries stopped by asking to get pictures taken with the book. Schlie said the book was worth US$100,000, but was not insured. She said it was well-known throughout the nearby Mormon community that the store had an original copy.
UNITED STATES
Painting attacker sentenced
A woman who punched, scratched and slid her buttocks against a US$30 million painting by abstract expressionist Clyfford Still at a Denver museum has been sentenced to two years of probation, and will have to undergo mental health treatment, prosecutors said on Thursday. Carmen Tisch, 37, pleaded guilty earlier this month to felony criminal mischief for striking at and leaning against the oil-on-canvas painting 1957-J No. 2 at the Clyfford Still Museum last year, the Denver District Attorney’s Office said. After causing an estimated US$10,000 worth of damage to the painting, an intoxicated Tisch then pulled down her pants, slid her buttocks against the painting and urinated on the museum floor, prosecutors said. A judge sentenced Tisch to two years probation and she must also undergo mental health treatment and receive help for alcohol dependency as a condition of her sentence. She might still face a restitution hearing. The North Dakota-born Still was considered one of the most influential post-World War II US abstract expressionist artists, but he was not as famous as contemporaries like Jackson Pollock.
HONDURAS
Graft commission formed
President Porfirio Lobo said a newly installed five-member commission would be responsible for purging the judicial system and national police of corrupt officials. Lobo said both institutions have been corrupted by drug traffickers. He said the commission would help address the country’s “many security challenges.” The country of 7 million people had the world’s highest homicide rate in 2010. Its 6,200 killings came to 82.1 homicides for every 100,000 inhabitants. Drug trafficking has spiked in recent years in remote, lightly patrolled regions where planeloads of cocaine from South America land on clandestine airstrips. The new commission includes a top official at the Organization of American States, a retired Chilean army general, a former interior minister and two academics.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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