BANGLADESH
Bodies recovered from crash
Rescue teams including navy divers have recovered 24 bodies from a bus that plunged into a river at a ferry crossing, officials said yesterday. The bus on Wednesday sank into the deep waters of the Padma River in Goalanda. It had about 50 passengers on board, many of whom escaped. A fire service report said that 24 bodies, including those of five children, had been recovered by midday yesterday. Some were pulled out by fire service officers, others by locals who came to help, as well as by navy divers. “The bus was waiting to board a ferry, when it fell into the river,” said Noor Jahan Begum, 35, who saw the accident. “Some passengers got out of the bus, but their family members died, trapped inside.”
Photo: Reuters
RUSSIA
Protesters to be arrested
The government yesterday said it would arrest anybody who protests mass Internet blackouts, as Moscow deals with bubbling public discontent against widespread switch-offs. The capital on Wednesday officially lifted three weeks of restrictions on mobile Internet access in Moscow — a measure the Kremlin had called “necessary” for security — but connection remains poor across many parts of the city. Regions have been switching off mobile Internet services for months in what they say is a measure to thwart Ukrainian counterattacks with drones that connect to local data providers. The Ministry of Internal Affairs yesterday issued a warning against taking part in “unauthorized public events,” citing an “increase” in calls for rallies. “All attempts to hold such events will be immediately suppressed, and their organizers and participants will be detained,” it said in a statement.
CAMBODIA
Journalists’ sentence upheld
A court yesterday upheld 14-year prison sentences for two journalists convicted of treason for posting a photograph taken in a military-restricted area after a round of border clashes with Thailand, a rights group said. Journalists Pheap Phara and Phorn Sopheap were arrested in late July last year after posting a photo on Facebook that appeared to show them with Cambodian soldiers at the centuries-old Ta Krabei temple on the disputed frontier with Thailand, local rights group LICADHO said. Thai media outlets later republished the image, alleging it showed unplaced landmines in the background, the group said in a statement. The two journalists were convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison in December for “supplying a foreign state with information prejudicial to national defense.”
UNITED STATES
Colbert to write movie
Stephen Colbert is heading to Middle-earth. The comedian announced in a video posted on Tuesday that following the end of his 11-year run as host of CBS’ The Late Show in May, he would cowrite and develop a new film in the Lord of the Rings franchise. It marks a new chapter for Colbert, a noted devotee of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional world of Middle-earth. Colbert appears in the video alongside Peter Jackson, the New Zealand-born filmmaker who directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy that was a critical and commercial smash. The film’s current working title is Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, according to a statement. A director has not been announced. “I’m pretty happy about it,” Colbert says to Jackson in the clip. “You know what the books mean to me and what your films mean to me.”
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
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
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,
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,
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