AUSTRALIA
Watchdog pans airline tie-up
The nation’s competition watchdog yesterday said it was leaning toward blocking a tie-up between Qantas Airways and China Eastern Airlines because it could increase fares on the popular Sydney-Shanghai route. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission issued a draft decision to deny authorization for Qantas and China Eastern to coordinate their operations between Australia and China under an agreement proposed in November last year. The watchdog said in a statement that the tie-up could result in “significant public detriment” by giving Qantas and China Eastern increased ability and incentive to limit capacity and increase airfares on the Sydney-Shanghai route. Commission chairman Rod Sims said the regulator understands the commercial reasons for the alliance, as Qantas wants to establish a gateway to northeast Asia, but is concerned the two airlines have chosen to do so with their main competitor on the route.
MYANMAR
Police reject monks’ lawsuit
Police in the northwest have rejected a lawsuit filed by two Buddhist monks against the nation’s Minister of Home Affairs Ko Ko and national police chief Police Major General Zaw Win, saying that they are protected by law. In declining to accept a first information report, which is needed for a lawsuit to proceed, police officials said no lawsuit can be brought against any officer who carries out acts in good faith. Human rights lawyer Aung Thein yesterday said that the two Buddhist monks, among scores seriously burned during a 2012 police crackdown on protests at a Chinese-backed copper mine, registered the first information report at the Hsalingyi police station. Aung Thein, who works with the Justice Trust, said a letter was also sent to Burmese President Thein Sein asking that the lawsuit proceed against government ministers. He said the purpose of the lawsuit was “to fight for justice and to highlight human rights violations and the lack of rule of law in Myanmar.”
ALGERIA
Threat spurs evacuation
Authorities temporarily evacuated about 100 Turkish construction workers from a roadway project east of Algiers as a precaution after a threat from militants affiliated with the Islamic State group, security sources said on Monday. The measure underscores growing concern over militant attacks in North Africa following last week’s National Bardo Museum massacre of foreign tourists in Tunisia and the Islamic State group’s growing presence in neighboring Libya. The Turkish workers were evacuated for 24 hours as a “preventative measure,” but returned to the Kabilye region east of the capital on Monday. A French tourist was kidnapped and beheaded in the area by Islamic State extremists last year.
RUSSIA
Human rights group fined
A Moscow court on Monday fined the prominent Sakharov Centre, a human rights group seeking to preserve the legacy of a Nobel Prize-winning Soviet-era dissident, for failing to declare itself as a “foreign agent.” The organization was slapped with a 300,000 ruble (US$5,100) fine for not registering under a controversial law signed by President Vladimir Putin in 2012 as part of a broader crackdown on rights activism. The law forces non-governmental groups who receive funding from abroad and carry out political activities to use the “foreign agent” tag on all their paperwork and to undergo more intrusive checks.
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
RSS