■JAPAN
Opposition head resigns
Opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa, under fire over a political donations scandal, stepped down yesterday ahead of polls that conservative Prime Minister Taro Aso must call by September. Ozawa — head of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) — has been hit hard by the scandal, in which a top aide has been indicted for taking illegal donations from a construction company. “To strengthen our party unity for a victory in the upcoming general elections and for a change of government, I have decided to sacrifice myself and resign as DPJ leader,” Ozawa said. He did not say who could succeed him at the helm of the party.
■MALAYSIA
Alleged gangsters shot dead
Police shot dead five Indonesian men believed to be members of a notorious criminal gang responsible for more than 20 robberies nationwide, a news report said yesterday. Police cornered the five men at a forest reserve in the central state of Selangor late on Sunday and a shootout ensued after the men allegedly tried to attack officers with machetes and a pistol, police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told the official Bernama news agency. The group would take buses to their victim’s houses, tie up the homeowners and leave after taking cash, jewelry and food, Khalid said.
■AUSTRALIA
Asylum seekers intercepted
Australian authorities yesterday intercepted a boat carrying more than 30 suspected asylum seekers, the latest in a string of such vessels stopped in the country’s waters this year. Border agents intercepted the boat 42km north of the Tiwi Islands, off Australia’s northern coast, Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus said in a statement. The 31 passengers and three crew on board were being taken to Christmas Island, an Indian Ocean territory where the government detains and processes refugee applicants. Their nationalities were not immediately known.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Chinese injured in rampage
Several Chinese staff were injured in a rampage by mine workers who trashed vehicles and equipment at a major nickel project, reports and management said yesterday. The violence on Friday halted construction work at the US$1.37 billion Chinese-run Ramu mine’s Basamuk refinery site in Madang on the northern coast of the Pacific nation. “There was a lot of damage caused with more than 30 vehicles destroyed while workers’ accommodation blocks and plant equipment were extensively damaged,” Ramu NiCo Management Ltd said in a statement. Five Chinese and three locals injured in the fracas were treated at a local hospital. The attack was sparked by a misunderstanding about an earlier industrial accident in which a local worker was injured, a company official said.
■MALDIVES
Dissident leads early polls
The party of the country’s dissident-turned-president has likely won the most seats in the archipelago’s first multiparty legislative elections, but not enough for an outright majority, according to preliminary results cited by a news report. Any result for President Mohamad Nasheed shy of the 39 seats needed for a majority in the 77-seat legislature would mean his administration would have to rely on independent and minor-party lawmakers to pass its legislative agenda. But Nasheed, the former political prisoner who ended the 30-year rule of former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom last year, would remain in charge of the government, appointing the Cabinet.
■ICELAND
Parliament to vote on EU bid
The government said on Sunday it would ask parliament to vote on whether the recession-hit country should start membership talks with the EU. Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir said a bill authorizing accession talks would be introduced when the parliament, the Althingi, resumes sitting on Friday. “In the coming weeks the demand of the people of Iceland will be to find out what the EU has to offer to us,” Sigurdardottir said. “It would not be fair for the Althingi to prevent that.” Sigurdardottir and Finance Minister Steingrimur Sigfusson also introduced their new Cabinet, two weeks after their two party coalition won elections. Talks on forming a government had snagged on whether Iceland should seek to join the EU, and potentially the euro — seen by many Icelanders as the country’s best route out of financial crisis. Sigurdardottir’s Social Democratic Alliance supports EU membership, while Sigfusson’s Left Green Movement opposes it.
■EGYPT
Five-year-old has bird flu
A five-year-old girl has contracted the bird flu virus after coming into contact with infected birds, the state news agency MENA reported on Sunday. The case brings to 69 the number of people confirmed to have contracted the H5N1 avian influenza virus in the country, which has been hit harder than any another country outside Asia. MENA, citing the Health Ministry, said the girl from Sohag Province was being treated with the anti-viral drug Tamiflu and was in a stable condition. Some 26 Egyptians have died after contracting the virus.
■GEORGIA
President to meet opposition
President Mikhail Saakashvili was scheduled to meet yesterday with four members of the opposition coalition — Irakli Alasania, Levan Gachechiladze, Salome Zurabishvili and Kakha Shartava — who have demanded his resignation during a month of protests that have brought the capital to a standstill. The opposition says the president backtracked on democratic promises and provoked last year’s disastrous war with Russia. “Our demand remains unchanged — that is for Saakashvili to resign,” opposition politician Georgy Khaindrava said on Sunday. Saakashvili has refused to step down before his term is up in 2013.
■ISRAEL
Alleged murderers on trial
The mother and grandfather of a murdered four-year-old girl have gone on trial for her killing. Frenchwoman Marie-Charlotte Renault and Israeli Roni Ron, who was her lover, were charged with killing Rose Pizem last year. The indictment states they stuffed her body into a suitcase and threw it into a river in Tel Aviv. Police said at the time that the little girl had bounced back and forth between her father in France and her mother in Israel. She was allegedly abused or neglected by both.
■SAUDI ARABIA
Progress in nuclear talks
French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said on Sunday that Paris and Riyadh have made “good progress” towards finalizing a civilian nuclear energy cooperation agreement and a deal could be signed soon. “It involves cooperation in civil nuclear energy under the best security conditions,” Lagarde told reporters in Riyadh after talks with King Abdullah, Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, Finance Minister Ibrahim al-Assaf and other officials. French President Nicolas Sarkozy offered Riyadh help last year to develop civilian nuclear energy.
■COLOMBIA
Rebels kill seven soldiers
Seven soldiers were killed and four wounded overnight in an ambush by leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas in the southwestern part of the country, a senior regional official said on Sunday. Government secretary Fabio Trujillo of Narino, the department bordering Ecuador, said the attack on an army patrol by the rebels took place overnight on Saturday into Sunday in rural Samaniego municipality. The ambush occurred at almost the same time as an explosive device was triggered near the Samaniego police quarters, slightly wounding two officers, Trujillo said.
■MEXICO
Nine killed by gunmen
Gunmen killed nine people in three separate attacks in the drug-plagued western state of Michoacan, authorities said on Sunday. The state attorney general’s office said gunmen broke into a ranch in a rural area and shot dead five employees, along with four horses and a bull. Three brothers were shot to death in the Michoacan city of Zamora in a separate attack, and another was killed by gunmen in the city of Arteaga. Prosecutors said the motives in the Saturday attacks are under investigation. Drug gangs have fought frequent turf battles in Michoacan.
■MEXICO
Singing cowboy thief nabbed
Clearly unfazed by the swine flu outbreak, a machete-wielding thief dressed like a crooning cowboy stole his victims’ belongings and forced them to listen to him sing, authorities said. Police arrested Vicente Fernandez decked out in a charro (singing cowboy) outfit, with a 40cm machete he used to frighten passersby into handing over their loot, local police spokesman Alfredo Barro said. But his crime did not stop there: At least one victim — machete pressed to his throat — was forced to listen to the thief (who shares the name of a real singer) belt out his own bit of warbling.
■UNITED STATES
Duck family reunited
Just in time for Mother’s Day, a mother duck has been reunited with two of her babies who fell into a storm drain in Manchester, New Hampshire. The mother was crossing the street with 11 ducklings parading behind her on Thursday when two of the little ones tumbled through a grate, the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper reported. Workers at a nearby hair salon called police, who sent a crew from the city water works department. While salon workers corralled the upset mother duck and other ducklings in a box, the city workers opened the grate, climbed into the drain and rescued the two ducklings.
■BRAZIL
Floodwaters recede, 40 die
Floodwaters receded in inundated towns across the northern part of the country on Sunday, but the number of homeless rose above 300,000 and two people were missing after an overloaded canoe overturned in swift waters. Forty deaths had been confirmed in the north’s worst flooding in decades, fed by two months of unusually heavy rains in a zone stretching from deep in the Amazon to normally arid areas near the Atlantic coast. In Maranhao State, one of the worst affected regions, a small canoe capsized with seven people aboard on a river between the towns of Pedreiras and Trizidela do Vale. Two passengers were missing: a 54-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
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