VIETNAM
Typhoon kills 27
Extreme weather caused by Typhoon Rammasun has killed 27 people, with the storm unleashing flash floods, landslides and lightning strikes, officials said yesterday. Heavy rain flooded 7,200 houses and 4,200 hectares of cropland, with the north of the country worst hit, the national flood and storm control committee said. The cost of the damage was estimated at about US$6 million.
INDIA
Medical kickbacks probed
The government has ordered an investigation into doctors and laboratories suspected of offering kickbacks for referring patients for medical tests, following a sting operation by Hindi news channel News Nation TV. The channel showed laboratories in New Delhi offering commissions as high as 50 percent to doctors who referred patients to their diagnostic centers. Officials at one laboratory visited by News Nation’s undercover reporters said they had kickback arrangements with 10,000 doctors, with monthly payments running into tens of thousands of rupees for some neurosurgeons who prescribe expensive tests.
TURKEY
Police officers arrested
Authorities yesterday arrested 55 senior police officers in a criminal probe over alleged corruption and abuse of office, the latest apparent crackdown on opponents of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of presidential polls. Forty serving and former top police officers were arrested in Istanbul, including the former head of the anti-terrorism unit of Istanbul police, television reports said. Fifteen others were arrested elsewhere. The suspects are accused of espionage, illegal wire-tapping, forgery in official documents, violation of privacy, fabricating evidence, and violation of secrecy of investigation.
PHILIPPINES
Bishops caution president
Catholic bishops yesterday warned President Benigno Aquino III to resist temptations to bully the Supreme Court to reverse a decision that an economic stimulus fund was illegal, asking him to uphold the constitution. Aquino has warned the court of a possible constitutional crisis if it does not reverse its decision that the Disbursement Acceleration Program was illegal. “There is a very important distinction between what is popular — or appears to be so — and what is right,” said Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.
AUSTRALIA
Senator sorry about joke
A federal senator who told breakfast radio she would only date men who were rich and “well-hung” apologized yesterday, saying she had tried to hide her embarrassment with a joke. Jacqui Lambie told Tasmania’s Heart 107.3 that she had not been in a relationship for more than a decade. When the hosts offered to help her find love, she replied: “Now they must have heaps of cash and they’ve got to have a package between their legs, let’s be honest. And I don’t need them to speak, they don’t even need to speak.” A young male listener rang the show to say he met her criteria. “I’m just a bit concerned because you’re so young, I’m not sure you’d be able to handle Jacqui Lambie,” the politician said. “Are you well-hung?” “Like a donkey,” he replied. Lambie later apologized. “When Kim and Dave on Hobart’s Heart FM 107.3 this morning asked me about my love life in a light-hearted segment — I tried to cover up my embarrassment by making a joke,” she said. “A lot of people laughed, some people may have got offended.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
OPTIONS: Asked if one potential avenue to a third term was having J.D. Vance run for the top job and then pass the baton to him, Trump said: ‘That’s one,’ among others US President Donald Trump on Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029. “There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club. He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term
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