SOMALIA
Car bomb kills eight
A car bomb yesterday exploded at the gates of a military base in Mogadishu, killing at least eight soldiers and wounding 14 others, with the toll expected to rise, police said. The al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab extremist group quickly claimed responsibility through its radio arm, Andalus. The group often targets military sites in the capital and controls large parts of southern and central Somalia, with little sign of being hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Police Colonel Ahmed Muse said the bomber struck the 12th April Army Brigade base near the newly reopened sports stadium in Warta-Nabadda district.
CHINA
Canadian sentenced
The government on Friday sentenced another Canadian to death on drugs charges, the second in two days to be handed the punishment, as tensions soar between Beijing and Ottawa. The Foshan Intermediate People’s Court in the southern province of Guangdong said Ye Jianhui had been sentenced for trafficking and manufacturing drugs, and would have all his assets confiscated. According to the state-run Global Times, authorities seized more than 217kg of white crystals containing MDMA from Ye and five others in 2016. The rest of the group were also sentenced, with one other receiving a death sentence, while the others were given lesser punishments. It comes a day after a court in the provincial capital Guangzhou handed a death sentence to Canadian national Xu Weihong on a charge of making drugs. Last year, China also sentenced two other Canadians to death on drug trafficking charges.
UNITED STATES
Man caught after 40 years
A man who in 1974 escaped from a Colorado prison was found living under an alias in a small town in northern New Mexico after the Denver police officer he shot decades ago helped track him down, authorities said. Luis Archuleta, 77, also known as Larry Pusateri, was arrested on Wednesday in Espanola, New Mexico, where he had been living under the name Ramon Montoya for about 40 years, the FBI said in a statement. Archuleta was accused in 1971 of shooting Daril Cinquanta, who had pulled over Archuleta to check his identification, KMGH-TV reported. Cinquanta, who since retired and started his own private investigation company, never stopped looking for Archuleta, KUSA-TV said. “Forty-six years later, and out of the clear blue I get a phone call. Well, this person gives me his address and his alias,” Cinquanta said. A federal court issued a new arrest warrant and Archuleta was apprehended in the town about 32km north of Santa Fe. “I would love to sit down and talk to him,” Cinquanta said. “He may or may not talk to me. Who knows?”
UNITED STATES
Falwell in underwear uproar
The president and chancellor of the conservative evangelical Liberty University has been forced to take an “indefinite leave of absence” after he shared a photo of himself with his pants unzipped to reveal his underwear. Jerry Falwell Jr, a prominent backer of US President Donald Trump and one of the US’ most powerful evangelical leaders, was accused of hypocrisy after posting the photo to Instagram this week. Liberty University, based in Virginia, has strict rules over dress code and social activities. In a statement on Friday, the university said its executive committee requested that Falwell take a leave from his posts.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not