ARMENIA
Over 200 protesters detained
Police have detained more than 200 demonstrators demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over territorial concessions made to Azerbaijan, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. Protests erupted in the nation last month after the government agreed to hand territory it had controlled since the 1990s back to Azerbaijan. Pashinyan’s position remains unshaken, despite the challenge mounted by archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who is trying to launch an impeachment process against him. Hundreds of protesters yesterday took to the streets across Armenia, trying to block roads in what Galstanyan has called a “nationwide campaign of disobedience.” The ministry said “226 citizens were detained for disobeying the lawful demands of police.” Last week Yerevan returned control over four border villages it had seized decades ago to Azerbaijan, a key step toward normalizing ties between the two countries — who fought two wars for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
JAPAN
Chinese ships spotted
The Japan Coast Guard has spotted Chinese ships sailing near disputed islands in the East China Sea for a record 158 consecutive days, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said yesterday. The territorial dispute over the Tokyo-controlled islets, known as the Senkaku by Japan and the Diaoyutai (釣魚台) by China, is a long-running sore point between the countries. The coast guard observed four China Maritime Police Bureau vessels sailing in the “contiguous” zone adjacent to Japan’s territorial sea near the island chain. It was the 158th consecutive day that Chinese boats were spotted there — surpassing the previous record of 157 days in 2021, Hayashi said. “The government considers this series of navigations within the contiguous zone and intrusions into territorial waters an extremely serious matter,” he told reporters.
THAILAND
MP jailed over royal insult
A Thai court yesterday sentenced a lawmaker from the progressive Move Forward Party (MFP) to two years in jail for insulting the monarchy. Chonthicha Jaengraew was found guilty under lese majeste laws over a speech she made during an anti-government protest in 2021. The MFP won the most seats in last year’s general election, but was blocked from forming a government by conservative forces opposed to its pledge to reform the royal defamation laws. The court in Thanyaburi reduced the sentence from three years because Chonthicha cooperated, her lawyer said. The court freed the lawmaker on 150,000 baht (US$4,097) bail pending an appeal, the lawyer added.
PAKISTAN
33 arrested over assault
Police have arrested dozens of Muslim men and charged them with attacking a Christian father and son on allegations of desecrating pages of Islam’s holy book, officials said yesterday. The mob went on a rampage on Saturday after locals saw burnt pages of the Koran outside the two Christian men’s house and accused the son of being behind it, setting their house and shoemaking factory on fire in the city of Sargodha in Punjab Province, senior police officer Asad Ijaz Malhi said. They also beat up the son. Malhi said police forces rescued the two wounded men and transported them to a hospital where they were in stable condition, and that at least 33 men were arrested following multiple police raids. Authorities were chasing others who might be involved in the attack, he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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