TURKEY
TAK claims Ankara attack
A radical Kurdish group with ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) yesterday claimed the deadly suicide car bomb attack that killed 35 people in Ankara last weekend. “On the evening of March 13, a suicide attack was carried out... in the streets of the capital of the fascist Turkish republic. We claim this attack,” the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) said in a statement on its Web site. The group said it was a response to security operations carried out by Turkish forces in the Kurdish-dominated southeast of the country. Sunday’s attack came three weeks after a similar car bombing in Ankara killed 29 people, also claimed by TAK.
THAILAND
PM lauds S Korean drama
A hit South Korean drama about a gun-toting soldier saving lives in a far away land has won over the mercurial junta chief, who yesterday called on citizens to watch the show. Former army chief turned Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha seized power in a 2014 coup and has often portrayed himself as an officer duty-bound to save the nation from years of political chaos, even penning two pop songs and commissioning a series of short films to spread his patriotic message. Now he has urged Thais to watch Descendants of the Sun. “What I have seen is that they have inserted a sense of patriotism, sacrifice, obeying orders and being a dutiful citizen,” he told delegates at a government function yesterday morning. “So please watch it and if anyone wants to make such a drama I will financially sponsor it to make people love government officials, uncorrupted officials and make the Thai people love each other,” he added.
JAPAN
Highway pileup kills two
A fiery pile-up inside a highway tunnel yesterday killed at least two people and left 70 needing treatment as dozens fled toxic smoke from burning vehicles, police and media said. The accident happened at about 7:30am inside the 860m Hachihonmatsu tunnel in Hiroshima Prefecture, a local police spokesman said on condition of anonymity. A truck crashed into several vehicles that were stopped inside the tunnel, causing it and at least one other vehicle to catch fire, he said. Local media said a dozen vehicles were involved, with at least five cars burning. The fire was put out a little more than two hours after the accident, the police spokesman said. Two people, including a woman, were confirmed dead, though the gender of the other fatality could not immediately be determined, the spokesman added.
THAILAND
Diamond thief turns monk
A gardener behind a US$20 million gem heist from a Saudi palace that has long soured relations between the two nations yesterday became a monk in hopes of redeeming his karma. Kriangkrai Techamong stole the precious gems from the palace of a Saudi prince where he worked in 1989, triggering a feud between Thailand and Saudi Arabia dubbed the “Blue Diamond Affair” that has yet to be resolved. Thai police later returned some of the jewels, but Saudi officials said most were counterfeits while the whereabouts of the most precious gem — a rare 50-carat blue diamond — remains unknown. Kriangkrai yesterday told local media his life has been haunted by the theft that unleashed an “avalanche” of suffering on his family. He was jailed for five years soon after the theft, but managed to sell most of the gems before his arrest.
UNITED STATES
First lady rules out race
First lady Michelle Obama showed off her vocal chops at the South by Southwest Music Festival, but drew a round of disappointed sighs on Wednesday when she told the crowd she has no plans to run for president. Obama made her debut at the Austin showcase of buzzworthy bands and technology, sitting with Grammy winners Queen Latifah and Missy Elliott to talk about girls’ education and empowerment. Obama broke into song when reflecting on seven years in the White House. She said “time is almost up” before softly singing some of the Boyz II Men hit It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday. Obama said she would most miss interacting with people as first lady, but says she has no presidential aspirations of her own. “No, no. Not going to do it,” she told the crowd. She mentioned her teenage daughters, Malia and Sasha, as two of the main reasons. “The daughters of a president. Just think about it. Come on, young people. Not so easy,” Obama said.
SOUTH AFRICA
Minister faced death threat
Deputy Minister of Finance Mcebisi Jonas received a death threat shortly before issuing a statement accusing a wealthy family with links to President Jacob Zuma of offering him the job of finance minister, the Business Day newspaper said yesterday. As he was preparing his bombshell statement, Jonas received a text message from a “prominent businessman” telling him to be quiet, the paper — South Africa’s main business daily — said. “Please keep your own counsel. Martyrdom is best left to Christ,” the text message read. The paper did not identify the sender.
RUSSIA
Hackers hit 13 banks
A newly discovered hacker group known as Buhtrap has attacked 13 Russian banks since August last year using malware that infiltrates their gateway to the central bank, Moscow-based cybersecurity company Group-IB said. The hackers spread the malware using infected e-mails that mimic correspondence from the central bank and Gazprombank JSC, Group- IB said in a report yesterday. The program then targets the automated bank-customer system that connects to the regulator. “This is the most critical system for Russian banks,” Dmitry Volkov, the head of Group-IB’s cyberintelligence department, said by telephone. “This is the same as if hackers were to get access to the SWIFT system at Citibank, for example.” In their biggest heist identified to date, the hackers stole 600 million rubles (US$8.65 million), the firm said.
UNITED STATES
Statue seized in New York
Federal agents seized an ancient Afghan statue from a Manhattan gallery on Wednesday morning, part of a string of seizures that began on Friday last week and have coincided with Asia Week festivities in New York. The object, identified by authorities as an eighth-century marble sculpture of the Hindu deities Shiva and Parvati seated on a tiger skin was taken from a gallery on East 67th Street, where it was being displayed by Leonardo Vigorelli, owner of the Milan-based Dalton Somare art gallery. Federal authorities, working in conjunction with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, wrapped the relic in protective mats and loaded it onto a moving truck. Investigators estimated its value at US$450,000. The seizures are part of Operation Hidden Idol, under which Manhattan prosecutors and Homeland Security Investigations officials have been attempting to recover items stolen from temples and other ancient sites in Asia.
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
French police on Monday arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of murder after an 11-year-old girl was found dead in a wood south of Paris over the weekend in a killing that sparked shock and a massive search for clues. The girl, named as Louise, was found stabbed to death in the Essonne region south of Paris in the night of Friday to Saturday, police said. She had been missing since leaving school on Friday afternoon and was found just a few hundred meters from her school. A police source, who asked not to be named, said that she had been
VIOLENCE: The teacher had depression and took a leave of absence, but returned to the school last year, South Korean media reported A teacher stabbed an eight-year-old student to death at an elementary school in South Korea on Monday, local media reported, citing authorities. The teacher, a woman in her 40s, confessed to the crime after police officers found her and the young girl with stab wounds at the elementary school in the central city of Daejeon on Monday evening, the Yonhap news agency reported. The girl was brought to hospital “in an unconscious state, but she later died,” the report read. The teacher had stab wounds on her neck and arm, which officials determined might have been self-inflicted, the news agency
ISSUE: Some foreigners seek women to give birth to their children in Cambodia, and the 13 women were charged with contravening a law banning commercial surrogacy Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday thanked Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni for granting a royal pardon last year to 13 Filipino women who were convicted of illegally serving as surrogate mothers in the Southeast Asian kingdom. Marcos expressed his gratitude in a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, who was visiting Manila for talks on expanding trade, agricultural, tourism, cultural and security relations. The Philippines and Cambodia belong to the 10-nation ASEAN, a regional bloc that promotes economic integration but is divided on other issues, including countries whose security alignments is with the US or China. Marcos has strengthened