INDIA
Truck crash kills at least 14
Police said that at least 14 people died when a small truck carrying them fell into a canal after smashing into a concrete railing on a highway in the nation’s north. Police officer Hem Pal Singh said another 22 people were injured in the accident early yesterday in Uttar Pradesh’s Etah district. Singh said the victims were returning home after attending a pre-wedding ceremony, adding that the driver apparently dozed off and lost control of the vehicle. Police figures showed that the nation has the world’s highest road accident death toll, with more than 110,000 people dying each year in crashes.
JAPAN
Patrol aircraft to be donated
The government plans to donate retired military patrol aircraft to Malaysia, a report said yesterday, as alliances strengthen in response to China’s maritime claims. The two countries are among a number in the region stepping up defense cooperation against what they see as Beijing’s aggressive stance on the high seas. Beijing insists it has sovereign rights to almost all of the South China Sea — strategically vital waters, where Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei also have claims. Responding to a request by Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo plans to offer decommissioned Lockheed P-3C Orion patrol aircraft, the Nikkei said, quoting an unnamed official at the Ministry of Defense. The National Diet is deliberating a bill that would allow the nation to provide military equipment to other countries at no cost. Malaysia would likely be the first beneficiary once the bill is passed, the Nikkei said, without clarifying how many P-3Cs the government plans to hand off. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force has about 60 P-3Cs in operation and plans to retire those that have logged about 15,000 hours of flight time. Immediate confirmation of the report was not available.
NEPAL
Sherpas prepare for climbs
Sherpas are fixing the final route to the summit of Mount Everest and the first climb of the season could be days away, an official said. High winds and snow near the summit were yesterday slowing down the work, but the first climb could happen as early as tomorrow, said government official Gyanendra Shrestha, who is stationed at base camp. The workers were fixing ropes above the last camp before the final approach to the summit, at the South Col, located at about 8,000m, he said. The Department of Tourism has issued a record number of permits to 317 climbers to attempt to scale the 8,850m summit this year. An equal number or more of Sherpa guides are to accompany them. May is the best month to climb Everest and there are at least a couple of windows of favorable weather on the summit. Last year, the government issued permits to 289 climbers.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
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