CHINA
South prepares for flooding
A wide area in the south of the country yesterday braced for more seasonal rains and flooding, which state media said has already left more than 120 people dead or missing this year. The National Meteorological Center raised the weather alert to yellow yesterday morning, the third-highest of four warning levels, for more than half a dozen provinces and the cities of Shanghai and Chongqing. Heavy to torrential rain was forecast through this afternoon. Footage on state broadcaster CCTV showed flooded streets and farmland in Anhui Province. In Jiangxi Province more than 8,000 people have been evacuated and 54 houses have collapsed after rainstorms over the past few days, the network said.
MALAYSIA
Alliance wins by-election
The alliance that former prime minister Najib Razak once led secured a victory at the first by-election since the country was plunged into political turmoil in February. The Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate received 13,872 votes at the Chini polls to win a seat in the state assembly of Pahang. That is 10 times more than the other two combined, including one backed by Mahathir Mohamad, who ousted Najib two years ago, but stepped down as prime minister earlier this year. BN is again part of the ruling coalition after it backed Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to succeed Mahathir. “I’m convinced that these by-elections clearly provide evidence that BN is not only still relevant but also has a bright future,” BN chairman Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said yesterday.
SPAIN
Catalonia confines 200,000
The northeastern region of Catalonia on Saturday reimposed restrictions on more than 200,000 people following several new COVID-19 outbreaks. Residents in Segria would not be able to leave the area from 12pm on Saturday, but they would not have to stay at home. “We’ve decided to confine Segria due to data that confirm too significant a growth in the number of COVID-19 infections,” Catalan President Quim Torra told a news conference. Catalonia is one of the hardest-hit parts of the country, with a total of 72,860 novel coronavirus cases, regional health ministry data released on Friday showed. Spain has reported 250,545 cases and 28,385 deaths.
IRAQ
Rocket misses Green Zone
A rocket fired toward Baghdad’s Green Zone, which hosts the US and other embassies, fell just short, damaging a home and injuring a child early yesterday, the Iraqi military said. Security forces at the same time stopped another Katyusha rocket from being launched at Taji military air base north of Baghdad, which hosts US troops, a military statement added. The military gave no further details. US officials blame Iran-backed militia for regular rocket attacks on US facilities in the country. No known Iran-backed groups have claimed responsibility.
SYRIA
More than 50 die in clashes
Clashes between Russia-backed regime forces and the Islamic State group have killed more than 50 fighters on both sides in two days, a Britain-based war monitor said on Saturday. Fighting and Russian air strikes in the central desert province of Homs, which began late on Thursday, claimed the lives of 20 pro-government fighters and 31 militants, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. “The fighting started in the night of Thursday to Friday with a jihadist assault on regime positions” near the town of al-Sukhna, observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
A former flight attendant for a Canadian airline posed as a commercial pilot and as a current flight attendant to obtain hundreds of free flights from US airlines, authorities said on Tuesday. Dallas Pokornik, 33, of Toronto, was arrested in Panama after being indicted on wire fraud charges in US federal court in Hawaii in October last year. He pleaded not guilty on Tuesday following his extradition to the US. Pokornik was a flight attendant for a Toronto-based airline from 2017 to 2019, then used fake employee identification from that carrier to obtain tickets reserved for pilots and flight attendants on three other
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