FRANCE
Chinese protest continues
About 6,000 people on Sunday took part in angry protests in Paris against the death of a Chinese man shot and killed when police responded to a call at his apartment last month, police said. The rally was organized by several Chinese associations and as with previous rallies held over the past week, there were sporadic skirmishes between protesters and security forces. Some of the demonstrators threw bottles, eggs and fruit, prompting the police to respond with tear gas during clashes that lasted more than an hour. On March 26, Liu Shaoyo (劉少堯), a 56-year-old father of five, was shot by a police team called to his apartment in northeast Paris over a suspected domestic dispute.
FRENCH GUIANA
Workers demand US$2.7bn
Labor leaders behind massive strikes have rejected a US$1 billion aid package offered by the French government, demanding instead more than US$2.5 billion right away. The South American territory, which is administered as a region of France, has been in the grip of industrial unrest for the past 10 days, with representatives of the Guianese calling for the area to be given “special status.” “We demand 2.5 billion euros [US$2.7 billion] immediately,” said Olivier Goudet, a spokesman for the grouping of unions, who had earlier met with French Minister of Overseas Ericka Bareigts.
ARMENIA
Ruling party wins election
Early results in Sunday’s parliamentary election shows the country’s ruling party has won just under half of the vote. The election was the first since the ex-Soviet nation amended its constitution to expand the powers of parliament and the prime minister. The Central Election Commission yesterday said that 94 percent of the ballots counted showed Republican Party of Armenia President Serzh Sargsyan winning 49 percent of the vote. The bloc led by businessman Gagik Tsarukian trailed with 28 percent. Two more parties also looked set to clear the 5 percent barrier necessary to get seats in parliament.
UNITED STATES
Teen arrested over rape
Police in Chicago have arrested a 14-year-old boy and are seeking a 15-year-old in connection with the gang rape of a teenage girl that was broadcast on Facebook Live last month, authorities said on Sunday. Police were working to identify other suspects — the Facebook video, since taken down, showed as many as six — but the trauma suffered by the 15-year-old victim was complicating the investigation, area commander Brendan Deenihan told a news conference. “She’s just having a difficult time even communicating what occurred to her,” Deenihan said, adding that the teen had been cyberbullied by people belittling her ordeal and that her family had received threats. More arrests were expected soon, he said. The 14-year-old suspect faces at least three juvenile felony charges, including aggravated criminal sexual assault, police said.
SOMALIA
Indian ship hijacked
An Indian commercial ship off the coast of the country has been hijacked and the vessel is heading toward the shore, a former government anti-piracy official said yesterday. “We understand Somalian pirates hijacked a commercial Indian ship and [it is heading] toward Somalia shores,” said Abdirizak Mohamed Dirir, a former director of the anti-piracy agency in the Puntland region.
MYANMAR
Karaoke fire kills 15
At least 15 people have died after a fire ripped through a karaoke bar on Sunday night, trapping revelers inside smoke-filled rooms. Eleven men and four women died when the blaze consumed the top floor of the Shwe Myat Min Thamee KTV bar in the town of Magway, northwest of the capital, Naypyidaw. Magway region fire department Director Aung Win Sein yesterday said the electrical system had apparently overheated and set fire to the sound-proof lining inside the singing rooms. Police have opened two cases against the bar owner for negligence.
MYANMAR
NLD wins many by-elections
The National League for Democracy (NLD) won nearly half of the seats contested in by-elections on Sunday, in the first vote since it swept to power a year ago and an early indication of support for State Councilor Aung Sang Syu Kyi’s administration. The party won nine out of 19 seats in the national and regional parliaments, the Union Election Commission said. The outcome of the by-elections will not affect the balance of power within the parliament.
Cambodia
Adoptions to go ahead
The government is set to allow foreign couples to return home with babies conceived to surrogates before the “womb for rent” business was banned last year, a Ministry of Interior official said yesterday. Secretary of State Chou Bun Eng said Prime Minister Hun Sen has approved an “exit strategy” allowing babies who were born to — or being carried by — surrogates before the ban to leave. Foreign couples had to show a DNA match to claim their babies, while the surrogate’s husband had to testify that the baby did not belong to him, she said.
JAPAN
Envoy returning to S Korea
Tokyo is sending its ambassador back to South Korea almost three months after recalling him over a statue commemorating Korean women forced to work in military brothels during World War II. The two nations in 2015 agreed that the issue of “comfort women” would be “finally and irreversibly resolved” if all conditions of the accord were met. Tokyo had said that the statue depicting a young woman sitting barefoot in a chair, which was erected at the end of last year near its consulate in Busan, violated that agreement. Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida told reporters that Ambassador Yasumasa Nagamine is to return to Seoul today.
AUSTRALIA
Shark attacks kayak
A police boat rescued a man after a shark bit the back off his kayak and left him sinking off the in Moreton Bay off Brisbane. The man, 39, made an emergency phone call from his damaged watercraft after the attack on Sunday, a police statement said. Brisbane water police were able to track his location with the help of planes coming in to land at nearby Brisbane Airport, it said. Police retrieved the man on Sunday afternoon, as well as his formerly 6.5m kayak that was missing its stern. The man was uninjured, the statement said.
HONG KONG
Warhol’s Mao painting sold
An Andy Warhol portrait of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東) on Sunday sold for US$12.6 million at a Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong, less than the US$15 million it was expected to fetch. A private Asian collector bought the painting. Warhol began his series of Mao portraits in 1972 when ties between China and the US began to thaw after then-US president Richard Nixon’s trip to Beijing.
THAILAND
Police attacked in south
Insurgents yesterday fired hundreds of shots into a police booth in Muslim-majority Yala Province, wounding 12 officers. Closed-circuit TV footage showed what appeared to be about 30 insurgents surround a police booth and firing more than 500 shots inside the building, said Police Major General Kritsada Kaewchandee, head of the provincial police. “This was the biggest attack in the deep south in many years,” he said.
INDIA
German woman raped
A German tourist has accused two men of taking her captive and raping her in Tamil Nadu state, police said yesterday. The woman told police two men dragged her to a secluded spot from a private beach resort in the town of Mamallapuram and raped her. “We have registered a sexual assault complaint and a manhunt has been launched to track the attackers,” district police chief Santosh said. “We are questioning suspects, but no arrests have been made yet.” He said medical tests had confirmed sexual assault and the German embassy had been informed. The German woman’s complaint comes three weeks after a 28-year-old Irish woman was raped and murdered in Goa.
JAPAN
Detainee died of stroke
A Vietnamese man who died in solitary confinement at an immigration detention center last month died from a stroke, a Ministry of Justice official said yesterday. An autopsy on Wednesday found that Nguyen The Hung died of a subarachnoid hemorrhage, the official said, requesting anonymity. Fellow detainees said the man had repeatedly told guards he was suffering from pain in his head and neck after his arrival. He was prescribed painkillers by a doctor at the center, only for guards to ignore his later complaints of pain as he was held in a solitary cell and tell him to be quiet, the detainees said in a letter.
UNITED KINGDOM
Johnson firm on Gibraltar
The status of Gibraltar can only be changed by the territory’s people and by UK citizens, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said yesterday as the enclave became an issue in Brexit negotiations. Gibraltar’s sovereignty “is not going to change and cannot conceivably change without the express support and consent of the people of Gibraltar and the United Kingdom,” he said in Luxembourg where EU foreign ministers are meeting. Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis told Sunday’s El Pais newspaper that Madrid insists it should get a veto over any agreements regarding the strategic enclave on Spain’s southern tip. Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders has called for calm, saying that the Brexit divorce is already difficult enough without bringing in the centuries-old debate on the territory. “Let’s be cool and carry on, and not use too harsh language, I would say. Let’s just negotiate. I think that’s the most important,” he said.
NEPAL
Leopard closes airport
Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu was closed yesterday for about an hour after a leopard was spotted close to the runway. A spokesman for the airport said wildlife and security officers were searching for the animal, believed to be hiding in the drains, after it was spotted by a pilot. One international flight was delayed, but no other flight was scheduled during the closure. Leopards are occasionally known to stray into the city from the nearby hills.
LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER: By showing Ju-ae’s ability to handle a weapon, the photos ‘suggest she is indeed receiving training as a successor,’ an academic said North Korea on Saturday released a rare image of leader Kim Jong-un’s teenage daughter firing a rifle at a shooting range, adding to speculation that she is being groomed as his successor. Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, has long been seen as the next in line to rule the secretive, nuclear-armed state, and took part in a string of recent high-profile outings, including last week’s military parade marking the closing stages of North Korea’s key party congress. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a photo of Ju-ae shooting a rifle at an outdoor shooting range, peering through a rifle scope
India and Canada yesterday reached a string of agreements, including on critical mineral cooperation and a “landmark” uranium supply deal for nuclear power, the countries’ leaders said in New Delhi. The pacts, which also covered technology and promoting the use of renewable energy, were announced after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed a fresh start in the relationship between their nations. “Our ties have seen a new energy, mutual trust and positivity,” Modi said. Carney’s visit is a key step forward in ties that effectively collapsed in 2023 after Ottawa accused New Delhi
Gaza is rapidly running out of its limited fuel supply and stocks of food staples might become tight, officials said, after Israel blocked the entry of fuel and goods into the war-shattered territory, citing fighting with Iran. The Israeli military closed all Gaza border crossings on Saturday after announcing airstrikes on Iran carried out jointly with the US. Israeli authorities late on Monday night said that they would reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel to Gaza yesterday, for “gradual entry of humanitarian aid” into the strip, without saying how much. Israeli authorities previously said the crossings could not be operated safely during
Counting was under way in Nepal yesterday, after a high-stakes parliamentary election to reshape the country’s leadership following protests last year that toppled the government. Key figures vying for power include former Nepalese prime minister K. P. Sharma Oli, rapper-turned-mayor Balendra Shah, who is bidding for the youth vote, and newly elected Nepali Congress party leader Gagan Thapa. In Kathmandu’s tea shops and city squares, people were glued to their phones, checking results as early trends flashed up — suggesting Shah’s centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was ahead. Nepalese Election Commission spokesman Prakash Nyupane said the counting was ongoing “in a peaceful manner”
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