ISRAEL
Soldier begins hunger strike
A soldier who has refused to serve in the Palestinian Territories has gone on hunger strike in a military prison in solidarity with Palestinian administrative detainees, a report said on Sunday. The 31-year-old army reservist, Yaniv Mazor, was jailed for 20 days last week for refusing to take part in army duties in protest at the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, Haaretz newspaper said on its Web site. The day after his incarceration, Mazor went on hunger strike, it said, adding he had stressed through his lawyer the protest was not to highlight his own situation, but in solidarity with Palestinians held in administrative detention. About 1,550 imprisoned Palestinians ended a mass hunger strike on May 14 in exchange for a package of measures, which would allow visits from relatives in Gaza and the transfer of detainees out of solitary confinement.
JAPAN
Quake hits off east coast
A magnitude 6.4 undersea earthquake yesterday jolted the sea area off the east coast of Honshu, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said, but no injuries or damage were reported. The USGS said the quake had a depth of 31km and hit at 4:32am about 140km east of the city of Sendai.
THAILAND
Bosom brush draws rebuke
An episode of Thailand’s Got Talent has stirred a morality debate after a contestant painted a canvas using her bare breasts, drawing a rebuke from Minister of Culture Sukumol Kunplome, who called it shocking. Sukumol summoned the show’s producers yesterday, saying that nudity on public television is not considered appropriate in local society. On Sunday evening, the show featured a 23-year-old artist who politely addressed the judges, then turned to face her canvas. She removed her shirt, doused her torso with multicolored paint and used her body as a paintbrush, while dance music played in the background. She advanced to the next round after a female judge rejected her, but two male judges voted her through.
ISRAEL
Gunmen, civilian killed
Two gunmen and a civilian were killed yesterday morning during an exchange of fire along the southern border with Egypt in an area that is close to the Gaza Strip, public radio said. Three gunmen, initially believed to be Palestinians, opened fire toward a convoy of vehicles carrying construction workers to the place where they were building part of a vast border fence along the frontier, prompting troops in the area to open fire. Initial reports said two of the gunmen were killed along with one of the construction workers.
ISRAEL
Illegal migrants deported
A plane carrying 127 illegal immigrants took off overnight yesterday for the South Sudanese capital of Juba, in the first wave of expulsions of tens of thousands of Africans, the Maariv daily said on its Web site. The first charter flight left Ben Gurion airport carrying 127 men, women and children, Maariv said. Over the past week, Israel has been conducting mass raids to round up illegal immigrants, most of them Africans. Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who has vowed to rid the country of all illegal immigrants from Africa, was on hand at the airport to see them off, the correspondent said. Rising tensions over the growing number of illegal immigrants exploded into violence last month when a protest in Tel Aviv turned ugly, with demonstrators smashing African-run shops and property, chanting “Blacks out!”
CANADA
Stage collapse investigated
Investigators combed through the wreckage of a Toronto stage collapse on Sunday, trying to determine what caused the structure to come crashing down hours ahead of a concert by British rock band Radiohead, in which the group’s drum technician was killed and another three people were injured. Officials from the Ontario Ministry of Labour searched through the wreckage for clues to the cause of the collapse on Saturday in Downsview Park. They were also investigating whether safety regulations and standards were followed and if staff were properly trained. Ministry spokesman Matt Blajer said the massive structure is “still fairly unstable” and work is under way to make it safe.
FRANCE
Shooting suspect arrested
A suspect was arrested during a massive manhunt early yesterday after a man shot dead two female paramilitary gendarmes with one of their own pistols in a village in the southeast. The gendarmes, aged 29 and 35, were intervening in a dispute on Sunday when a man who had been accused of burglary knocked down one of them, grabbed her gun and killed her, investigators said. He then pursued the second officer and shot her in cold blood in a nearby square. The suspect, who an investigator said appeared to be drunk, made off with the gendarmes’ revolvers. “A person corresponding to the description” of the wanted man — aged 25, tall and well-built, with a shaved head — was being held, Toulon prosecutor Xavier Tarabeux said in the village of Collobrieres, where the drama occurred. “All verifications must be carried out” to make sure the man, who was arrested with his girlfriend, was the main suspect, Tarabeux said. The gendarmerie said the suspect had a criminal record. One of the dead women was married with daughters aged five and 13.
UNITED KINGDOM
Blair aide’s memoirs let rip
Former prime minister Tony Blair thought his successor Gordon Brown was “bonkers” and a “malign force” that was “hell-bent” on his destruction, according to his ex-media chief’s diaries aired yesterday. The extracts from Alastair Campbell’s diaries shone a light on the tension and bitterness behind the scenes during Blair’s decade in office from 1997, when Brown served as his finance minister. The sections from Campbell’s latest volume of diaries, The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq, were published in the Guardian newspaper. Blair and Brown had been the twin driving forces behind the Labour Party’s modernization and return to power after 18 years in opposition, but their relationship soon soured and turned into bitter rivalry. Brown eventually took over from Blair as prime minister in 2007, but lost power in the 2010 general election. In a diary entry from September 2002, Campbell said Blair felt a “dark cloud of GB [Brown] over him the whole time. He said GB was getting desperate and now was acting as a destructive force much of the time.”
CHILE
Soldier killed in Haiti
A soldier who worked at the embassy of Chile in Haiti died there on Sunday after being shot by unidentified assailants, authorities said. “The officer was assaulted by strangers and he received four bullet wounds in his abdomen and arm. Due to these injuries, he was taken to Lambert Sante Hospital, where he died,” the Chilean Defense Ministry said in a statement. The incident took place outside a restaurant in the Petionville suburb of Port-au-Prince and is being investigated by Haitian police.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
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