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.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
Ugandan wildlife authorities have reintroduced rhinos into a remote protected area where they were once poached into extinction, an event seen by conservationists as a milestone in efforts to support the recovery of a species threatened by poaching. On Tuesday, two southern white rhinos from a private ranch in the East African country were reintroduced into Kidepo Valley National Park in the country’s northeast. Two more rhinos in metallic crates arrived on Thursday. There have been no rhinos in the park since 1983, the result of poaching. However, a private ranch in central Uganda — the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary — has been
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