UNITED STATES
Five shot dead were Chinese
Five people killed in shootings at two farms in California this week were Chinese citizens, the Chinese consulate in San Francisco said. A spokesman for the consulate said in a WeChat statement that Beijing “strongly condemns this gun violence incident” and is in contact with the relevant US department to follow up on the probe into the shooting. Seven people died and one person was wounded in the shootings at two farms in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, on Monday. A 66-year-old suspect is in custody. It was not immediately known if any of the victims cited by the consulate also had US citizenship, although Beijing does not recognize dual citizenship.
MYANMAR
Election curbs implemented
The military government took an early step toward holding parliamentary elections, but it did so by imposing strict rules on political parties that might make fair balloting difficult. The junta has been under sanctions, including by the US and the EU, since the coup in 2021 that toppled a civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Seeking to ease international pressure, Army Senior General Min Aung Hlaing previously said parliamentary elections would likely be held by August. As an early step in the election process, the military issued a 20-page law prescribing rigorous rules for political parties hoping to compete. These rules could block Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, which won a 2020 election despite the junta’s claims of voter fraud, which were dismissed by international observers.
MEXICO
Guatemala migrants stopped
Authorities on Thursday stopped a crowded truck transporting nearly 70 migrants from Guatemala, mostly unaccompanied children, the National Institute of Migration said in a statement. The agency said federal agents spotted the truck at a checkpoint in northern Chihuahua state, which borders the US. It said there were 67 migrants from Guatemala traveling in the truck, including 57 unaccompanied minors, mostly boys, aged 14 to 17. The group also included a mother and daughter, and all were without proper migration permits, it said. The truck driver was referred to the Attorney General’s Office, while the family and the unaccompanied minors would be handed over to state authorities. The incident occurred after immigration agents early this month found three unaccompanied Salvadoran children stranded on a river islet on the US border.
UNITED STATES
Lawyer jailed over firebomb
A lawyer who purchased gasoline that another lawyer used to firebomb an unoccupied police vehicle during protests in New York in 2020 over the death of George Floyd was on Thursday sentenced to a year and a day in prison. Colinford Mattis was also ordered to pay more than US$30,000 to the New York Police Department for the destroyed vehicle. An attorney for Mattis declined to comment. Mattis is expected to start his sentence in March. Mattis and Urooj Rahman were arrested May 30, 2020, as demonstrations and protests raged over the killing of Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. Video footage showed that Rahman threw an incendiary device into the parked police vehicle, setting its console ablaze and causing severe damage. Mattis was driving the minivan they were in when police arrested them, and authorities said they found a lighter, a Bud Light beer bottle filled with toilet paper and a gasoline tank in the back. They said Mattis bought the gasoline.
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