SOUTH KOREA
Camping site fire kills five
A fire swept through a camping site yesterday, killing five people, including three children, and injuring two others, firefighters said. The dead victims — all from two families — were asleep when the fire broke out, ravaging their tent close to an island beach near Incheon. An investigation was underway to determine the cause of the blaze, but firefighters suspect a short circuit in the victims’ electric sleeping mat might have triggered the fire. The two injured included a 43-year-old man surnamed Park, who was sleeping in another tent nearby. “I was awakened by the flame early in the morning. I ran out of my tent and saw a boy standing outside the burning tent. I took him to safety, but others had no chance,” Park was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.
CHINA
Former police chief arrested
The former police chief of the northern region of Inner Mongolia has been detained on suspicion of murder, Xinhua news agency said yesterday, citing public security authorities. Zhao Liping (趙黎平) was in charge of the police in Inner Mongolia from 2005 until 2010 and had worked for almost three decades as a police officer, Xinhua said in a brief report. He is suspected of involvement in a murder that happened in Inner Mongolia’s Chifeng on Friday, Xinhua said. The state-run Legal Evening News said the person who was murdered was “a lady with whom he had quite a close relationship.” Neither report elaborated. It was not possible to reach Zhao for comment.
AFGHANISTAN
Ghani reveals candidates
President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday announced 16 new names to complete his Cabinet, nearly two months after parliament rejected two-thirds of his proposed ministers. Nearly six months after Ghani’s inauguration and the formation of a “national unity government” with his rival Abdullah Abdullah, only eight out of 25 ministerial posts have been filled. The rest were rejected by parliament on technicalities in late January, despite a power-sharing deal agreed between Ghani and Abdullah that was seen as saving Afghanistan from the risk of civil war. The 16 ministers announced on Saturday have not yet been approved by the lower house of parliament. In line with a commitment made by Ghani, four women are included in the list of 16 nominees. Names have also been proposed for several key portfolios, including economy, trade and industry and agriculture. However, no name has been released to head up the crucial defense ministry, just as “fighting season” between Afghan security forces and Taliban insurgents begins. The position is currently held by an interim minister.
INDIA
Officers arrested in brothel
Police in eastern India were left red-faced when a raid on a sex district discovered four of their own along with a convicted murderer whom they were supposed to be guarding, a report said yesterday. The four constables had been tasked with transporting the murderer from a jail in the underdeveloped state of Jharkhand to a hospital for a check-up, the Hindustan Times reported. However, the officers decided to make a 206km detour to visit the red light area in the town of Asansol, across the border in West Bengal State, the newspaper said. West Bengal police rounded up the four as part of the raid, although the murderer managed to escape — and then made his own way back to jail in the city of Kodarma in Jharkhand, the paper said.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
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