PAKISTAN
Storms kill 15, injure more
Violent rainstorms in the northwest have caused at least 15 deaths and injured dozens, officials said yesterday. Latif Khan, a senior disaster management official, said most of the deaths from the severe weather overnight were caused by the collapse of mud and stone walls and houses. He says the heavy rains also caused flash flooding in some places. Another official, Inayatur Rehman, said the roof of a seminary collapsed in the Bajur tribal region, killing six children and injuring nine. Motorists were killed and wounded in the cities of Nowshera and Peshawar by falling billboards and downed electrical cables. 0Khan said the toll could rise as rescue and relief operations continue.
SOUTH KOREA
North’s plan welcomed
The Presidential Office yesterday said it welcomed North Korea’s schedule to dismantle its nuclear test site next week. “This shows they are willing to keep their promise made at the inter-Korean summit through action beyond words,” Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a media briefing. Pyongyan has scheduled the dismantlement of its nuclear bomb test site for some time between Wednesday and Thursday next week to uphold its pledge to discontinue nuclear tests, state media reported on Saturday.
CHINA
Iranian minister visits
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Javad Zarif arrived in Beijing yesterday as part of a whirlwind diplomatic tour in the wake of Washington’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear accord. Zarif is leading a large delegation to “exchange views with relevant parties on the developments of the Iranian nuclear issue,” local officials said. The delegation is scheduled to head to Moscow and Brussels afterwards and will hold meetings with all of the remaining parties to the 2015 agreement, an Iranian official said. “China is highly concerned with the direction of the Iranian nuclear issue and is willing to maintain communication with all relevant parties, including Iran,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang (耿爽) said ahead of Zarif’s arrival.
PHILIPPINES
Mayor survives attack
A mayor accused of involvement in narcotics trafficking yesterday survived an ambush, police said, four months after President Rodrigo Duterte publicly threatened to kill him. Retired police chief superintendent Vicente Loot, a mayor in Cebu Province, had been repeatedly named by Duterte as one of the so-called “narco-generals” protecting the illegal drug trade. Loot was on a boat arriving with his family at a port in the town of Daanbantayan yesterday when unidentified gunmen opened fire and wounded four people, police said. The mayor was unhurt. “We are looking at all possible motives and angles, including his being tagged in the narco-list, politics, or his previous work in the police force,” acting town police chief Senior Inspector Irish Dilem said.
AUSTRALIA
Father blames grandfather
The grieving father of four children who were killed in a family mass murder and suicide case yesterday said their grandfather was to blame for what he called a planned shooting. Aaron Cockman’s children, his estranged wife, Katrina Miles, and her parents, Peter and Cynda Miles, were found dead on Friday by police at the Miles’ farm in Osmington. “Peter didn’t snap… I think he’s thought this through. I think he’s been thinking this through for a long time,” Cockman said.
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
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