RUSSIA
Killings over ‘noisy talk’
A man in the Ryazan region shot and killed five people for talking noisily at night under his windows, investigators said yesterday. A 32-year-old man from the small town of Yelatma opened fire on a group of four young men and a woman who “were talking loudly in the street under his windows” at about 10pm on Saturday, investigators said. The man went to his balcony to complain to the group and a dispute erupted before he reached for his hunting rifle, the Investigative Committee said. The shootings took place during stay-at-home orders aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19.
JAPAN
Virus cases jump in Tokyo
More than 130 people were newly infected with the novel coronavirus in Tokyo, public broadcaster NHK reported yesterday, citing metropolitan government officials. It was the highest daily jump in confirmed cases so far, bringing the number of positive cases in the capital to more than 1,000, NHK said. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike appeared on a morning news program yesterday and repeated her call to residents to avoid unnecessary outings, saying that “lives were at stake.”
GREECE
Second camp quarantined
A second refugee facility has been quarantined after a 53-year-old man tested positive for the new coronavirus, the Ministry of Migration and Asylum said yesterday. The Afghan man lives with his family at the Malakasa camp, but he has been transferred to a hospital in Athens. The camp would be put into quarantine for two weeks, the ministry said yesterday, adding police guarding the site would be reinforced to ensure the restrictions are implemented.
SOLOMON ISLANDS
Five ferry bodies found
Police yesterday said that five bodies have been recovered in the search for 27 people swept off an inter-island ferry on Friday. The MV Taimareho, with more than 738 people on board, left Honiara on Thursday night for West Are’are, ahead of a tropical cyclone, even though authorities warned against sailing. “The bodies discovered includes three female and two male,” police said.
AFGHANISTAN
IS leader captured
The leader of an Islamic State (IS) group affiliate and 19 other militants have been arrested, authorities said on Saturday. The National Directorate of Security said in a statement that Aslam Farooqi, also known as Abdullah Orakzai, the mastermind behind an IS-claimed attack on a Sikh temple in Kabul last month that killed at least 25 people, had been arrested. Farooqi had admitted to having links with “regional intelligence agencies” — a reference to Pakistan, the directorate said.
INDIA
Kashmir clashes kill 12
Nine rebels and three Indian soldiers were killed in two gunbattles in disputed Kashmir, an army official said yesterday. Soldiers killed five suspected militants along the de facto front line in Keran sector as an armed group of militants infiltrated from the Pakistani side of the state, army spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said, adding that three three soldiers had been killed. The other gunbattle broke out in a neighborhood in southern Kulgam town as police and soldiers scoured the area looking for militants on Saturday, Kalia said. As troops began conducting searches, they came under heavy gunfire, leading to a clash that killed four militants.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘UNWAVERING ALLIANCE’: The US Department of State said that China’s actions during military drills with Russia were not conducive to regional peace and stability The US on Tuesday criticized China over alleged radar deployments against Japanese military aircraft during a training exercise last week, while Tokyo and Seoul yesterday scrambled jets after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols near the two countries. The incidents came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi triggered a dispute with Beijing last month with her remarks on how Tokyo might react to a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan. “China’s actions are not conducive to regional peace and stability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said late on Tuesday, referring to the radar incident. “The US-Japan alliance is stronger and more
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
RSS