PHILIPPINES
Chinese boat runs into reef
A Chinese fishing boat has run aground on the World Heritage-listed Tubbataha Reef, authorities said yesterday. The vessel, with 12 crew members, was found stranded in the shallows of in the Sulu Sea just before midnight on Monday, coastguard spokesman Lieutenant Commander Arman Balilo told reporters. “This is a small fishing boat, but we are wondering how they strayed into Tubbataha. Apart from illegal entry, we are investigating them for possible poaching as well,” Balilo said. Balilo said the boat was to be pulled off the reef yesterday and then towed to Palawan, where the fishermen would be questioned. Balilo said Chinese fishermen frequently strayed into national waters, but this was the first time in recent years that they had been detected as far south as Tubbataha.
MALI
Internet domain name freed
The nation could become one of the world’s most popular Internet destinations after it became the first African country to give its domain away for free, despite its domain currently being ranked 177th in the world and only 4 percent of its population are online. The government announced that its little-known .ML domain — which is currently used by fewer than 50 active Web sites — will be free from July, in a move which it hopes will bring much-needed outside investment and give a boost to local businesses. The new scheme is being operated by Freedom Registry, the company which operates a similar .TK system for Tokelau — the tiny cluster of coral atolls in the South Pacific with a population of less than 2,000, but which is now the most popular domain name in the world, with more active domain name registrations than Russia and China combined. Interest in the .ML domain is expected to come from a number of countries or cities, including Manila, and Malaysia, attracted by the resemblance between the letters and their own names.
CHINA
Six sentenced for ‘gutter oil’
The Nanchang County People’s Court says it has sentenced six people to up to five years in prison for collecting used cooking oil and reselling it as new. The recycled oil is known as “gutter oil” and can contain carcinogens. It is typically bought from restaurants and the black-market trade of it has been a chronic problem across the nation. The court says three people in Jiangxi Province were found guilty of buying substandard cooking oil and selling 1,000 tonnes of it in 2011. The court statement says the effort made the sellers US$1 million. Three other people at a drinks manufacturer in Guangdong Province bought oil from the first group and sold it to cooking oil distributors. They were imprisoned for three to five years for selling poisonous food.
SOLOMON ISLANDS
Dengue infects hundreds
An outbreak of dengue fever has killed three people, infected hundreds more and is straining the nation’s medical system. Health authorities in Honoria and Australia yesterday said that at least 1,700 people are suspected to have contracted the disease since the outbreak began in February. Australia and New Zealand are sending medical staff to the country to assist. Australia will lead a team of nine doctors, nurses and public health experts, while a second team of 10 remains on standby to deploy there if necessary.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
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