NIGERIA
Boko Haram attacks town
Boko Haram has killed at least 60 people in a “devastating” attack on the northeastern Nigeria border town of Rann, Amnesty International said on Friday, calling it one of the deadliest assaults by the group in its nearly decade-long insurgency. Fighters on motorcycles drove through the town near the Cameroon border on Monday morning, setting houses on fire and killing people left behind, the international rights group said in a series of Twitter posts. The fighters also chased residents fleeing the “massive attack” and killed several outside town. Amnesty International published satellite imagery that it said showed “hundreds of burned structures.”
PHILIPPINES
Pair blamed for blast
Two suicide bombers from Indonesia were behind the explosions that left 22 people dead in a Catholic church in the southern province of Sulu on Jan. 27, Secretary of the Interior Eduardo Ano said. The two people were helped by Abu Sayyaf militants, who acted as a guide in the bombings, which also injured about 100 people, Ano told reporters in Leyte Province on Friday. CNN Philippines quoted Ano as saying that the Indonesians wanted to set an example among Filipino militants, adding that there are still some foreign terrorists in the country. The military this week launched an airstrike against a splinter group from the Abu Sayyaf that it believed led the attack. Secretary of Defense Delfin Lorenzana earlier said a Yemeni couple might have been behind the blast.
HONG KONG
Sex-change IDs refused
The High Court refused to allow three transgender people to be recognized as males on their official identity cards because they have not undergone full sex-change operations. The three, identified as Henry Tse, Q and R, are shown on their ID cards as having been born female, but are undergoing hormone therapy.
JAPAN
Fishing boat seized
A crab fishing boat with 10 people onboard has been seized by Russian authorities, an official said yesterday. The No. 68 Nishino-maru was taken to Russia’s eastern port of Nakhodka, where the crew members are expected to be questioned, said an official of Shimane Prefecture, western Japan. “We are asking the Russian side, through diplomatic channels, to release them as soon as possible,” he told reporters, adding that the fishermen were in good condition. Local media said the boat left Shimane on Jan. 26 to fish for snow crabs, also known as spider crabs, but lost contact on Wednesday.
INDONESIA
Drug suspect recaptured
A French drug suspect on the run since escaping from jail nearly two weeks ago has been recaptured, police said yesterday. Felix Dorfin — who faces the death penalty if convicted — was found hiding in a forest in North Lombok on Friday night, police said, and was returned to jail in Mataram, the island’s capital. Wearing disheveled black clothes and looking tired, Dorfin initially tried to bribe officers to let him go. “He didn’t resist arrest, but wanted to bribe our officers,” North Lombok police chief Herman Suriyono said yesterday, adding that he was found following a tip-off from locals in the area. After being checked by medical teams he was returned to jail. The 35-year-old Frenchman was arrested in September last year allegedly carrying a false-bottomed suitcase filled with 4kg of drugs.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and