MALAYSIA
Boat crews kidnapped
Filipino kidnap-for-ransom gangs yesterday raided two fishing boats and abducted 10 crew members in waters off Borneo, a government official and the Kuala Lumpur-based International Maritime Bureau said. The bureau said the fishing boats, carrying more than a dozen crew members, were approached by two vessels near the Philippines border who boarded the boats, confiscated documents and seized crew before sailing toward Sitangkai Island in the Philippines. An official helping to monitor terrorism incidents, who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said Abu Sayyaf militants are the prime suspects.
NEW ZEALAND
Man jailed for video sharing
Philip Arps was yesterday sentenced to 21 months in prison for sharing videos of the March 15 massacre at two Christchurch mosques. Radio New Zealand said Arps, 44, pleaded guilty to two charges of distributing objectionable material after sharing copies of the livestreamed video with about 30 people. Arps also shared a video that was modified to add cross-hairs and a body count to the images of the massacre, the broadcaster said. The government has outlawed the sharing of videos of the massacre, which is punishable by up to 14 years in jail.
INDONESIA
Boat sinking kills 18
At least 18 people, including four children, died after a motorboat overturned and sank in choppy waters off Java on Monday, a spokesman for the search and rescue agency said yesterday. The 10m wooden vessel with 57 people on board was hit by high waves off Sumenep on Madura Island, he said. Rescue teams saved 39 passengers and are searching for one missing person, he added.
SWITZERLAND
UNHCR warns over DRC
Hundreds of thousands of people have fled inter-ethnic violence in northeastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the past two weeks, complicating the tracing and treatment of patients at risk from Ebola, the UN said yesterday in Geneva. “This latest flare-up has sent more than 300,000 people into displacement,” said Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The situation in Ituri Province had deteriorated significantly since the middle of last week, with “multiple attacks” involving the Hema and Lendu groups, he said. “UNHCR fears this escalation could engulf large parts of the province,” he added.
SOUTH KOREA
Two fishermen repatriated
Two of four North Korean men rescued from a crippled fishing boat have said they want to defect and will be allowed to stay in the country, the Unification Ministry said yesterday. The other two men rescued on Saturday last week by the coast guard were repatriated yesterday through the border village of Panmunjom, it said. The boat was found adrift near Samcheok after its engine failed.
JAPAN
North Korean boats ousted
The coast guard yesterday said its patrol boats have been pushing back hundreds of North Korean boats trying to poach in fishing grounds off the coast of Yamatotai since last month. Water cannons were turned on 50 of the boats that ignored warnings, it said. Coast guard footage obtained yesterday showed North Korean crewmen on a wooden boat abandon a fishing rope after being sprayed with water.
FRANCE
Group to fight online dangers
Sixteen of the world’s biggest advertisers have joined together to push platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube to do more to tackle dangerous and false online content. The Global Alliance for Responsible Media would also include media-buying agencies from the major ad groups — WPP, the Interpublic Group of Companies, Publicis, Omnicom and Dentsu — as well as the platform owners, the group said yesterday at the ad industry’s annual gathering in Cannes. Unilever executive vice president of global media Luis Di Como said it was the first time that all sides of the industry had come together to tackle a problem that had far-reaching consequences for society.
UNITED STATES
Gloria Vanderbilt dies
Gloria Vanderbilt, the intrepid heiress, artist and romantic who began her extraordinary life as the “poor little rich girl” of the Great Depression, survived family tragedy and multiple marriages, and reigned during the 1970s and 1980s as a designer jeans pioneer, died on Monday at the age of 95. Vanderbilt was the great-great-granddaughter of financier Cornelius Vanderbilt and mother of CNN newsman Anderson Cooper, who announced her death via a first-person obituary that aired on Monday morning. She had been suffering from advanced stomach cancer, he said. “Gloria Vanderbilt was an extraordinary woman, who loved life and lived it on her own terms,” Cooper said in a statement. “She was 95 years old, but ask anyone close to her, and they’d tell you, she was the youngest person they knew, the coolest and most modern.”
ECUADOR
Row over Galapagos airstrip
The Galapagos Islands are at the center of political row after the government agreed to allow US anti-narcotics planes to use an airstrip on San Cristobal Island. Dozens of people on Monday demonstrated outside the main government office in Quito to protest a plan they described as a threat to the world heritage site’s unique environment — and an attack on the nation’s sovereignty. Former president Rafael Correa tweeted: “Galapagos is NOT an ‘aircraft carrier’ for gringo use. It is an Ecuadorean province, world heritage site, homeland.”
UNITED STATES
Counterculture hero dies
Charles Reich, the author and Ivy League academic whose The Greening of America blessed the counterculture of the 1960s and became a million-selling manifesto for a new and euphoric way of life, has died at 91. Reich’s nephew Daniel Reich said he died on Saturday after being briefly hospitalized. Charles Reich was a popular Yale University professor and a respected legal scholar when a 39,000-word excerpt from The Greening of America ran in the New Yorker in September 1970, generating a massive volume of letters. The book was published a few weeks later and sold more than 2 million copies, making Reich a middle-aged hero for a rebellious generation.
UNITED STATES
Maine to ban plastic bags
Maine is to ban single-use plastic bags in grocery stores statewide next year, according to legislation signed by Governor Janet Mills on Monday. Mills, a Democrat, signed the bill with the goal of limiting plastic pollution, US House of Representative Democrats said. The ban would come into effect by April 22, 2020, which is Earth Day. Vermont’s governor signed its own bill into law on Monday, his office said.
GLORY FACADE: Residents are fighting the church’s plan to build a large flight of steps and a square that would entail destroying up to two blocks of homes Barcelona’s eternally unfinished Basilica de la Sagrada Familia has grown to become the world’s tallest church, but a conflict with residents threatens to delay the finish date for the monument designed more than 140 years ago. Swathed in scaffolding on a platform 54m above the ground, an enormous stone slab is being prepared to complete the cross of the central Jesus Christ tower. A huge yellow crane is to bring it up to the summit, which will stand at 172.5m and has snatched the record as the world’s tallest church from Germany’s Ulm Minster. The basilica’s peak will deliberately fall short of the
FRAYED: Strains between the US-European ties have ruptured allies’ trust in Washington, but with time, that could be rebuilt, the Michigan governor said China is providing crucial support for Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and could end the war with a phone call, US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said. “China could call [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and end this war tomorrow and cut off his dual-purpose technologies that they’re selling,” Whitaker said during a Friday panel at the Munich Security Conference. “China could stop buying Russian oil and gas.” “You know, this war is being completely enabled by China,” the US envoy added. Beijing and Moscow have forged an even tighter partnership since the start of the war, and Russia relies on China for critical parts
Two sitting Philippine senators have been identified as “coperpetrators” in former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s crimes against humanity trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC), documents released by prosecutors showed. Philippine senators Ronald Dela Rosa and Christopher Go are among eight current and former officials named in a document dated Feb. 13 and posted to the court’s Web site. ICC prosecutors have charged Duterte with three counts of crimes against humanity, alleging his involvement in at least 76 murders as part of his “war on drugs.” “Duterte and his coperpetrators shared a common plan or agreement to ‘neutralize’ alleged criminals in the Philippines
In a softly lit Shanghai bar, graduate student Helen Zhao stretched out both wrists to have her pulse taken — the first step to ordering the house special, a bespoke “health” cocktail based on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). “TCM bars” have popped up in several cities across China, epitomizing what the country’s stressed-out, time-poor youth refer to as “punk wellness,” or “wrecking yourself while saving yourself.” At Shanghai’s Niang Qing, a TCM doctor in a white coat diagnoses customers’ physical conditions based on the pulse readings, before a mixologist crafts custom drinks incorporating the herbs and roots prescribed for their ailments.
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