FRANCE
Heatwaves kill 1,500 people
Two heatwaves that hit the nation this summer claimed more than 1,500 more lives, Minister of Solidarity and Health Agnes Buzyn said on Sunday. However, that toll was significantly lower than the disastrous summer of 2003, when an estimated 15,000 people died during an August heatwave, she said in a radio interview. This year’s heatwaves hit in June and July, with a new high temperature of 46°C recorded in the south on June 28. While the 2003 heatwave lasted 20 days in all, this year’s lasted for 18, in two separate heatwaves, the second covering a large part of the nation, Buzyn added.
SOUTH SUDAN
Kiir, Machar to meet
Former rebel leader Riek Machar was yesterday due to make a rare visit to the capital, Juba, and meet President Salva Kiir, officials said, raising hopes for progress in a stalled peace process. The two men signed a pact a year ago to end a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and wrecked the economy, but the rollout of the accord, which called for a unity government, has been delayed because the government says it does not have enough money to fund disarmament and the integration of all the armed factions. “The meeting aims at discussing the outstanding issues related to the implementation of the R-ARCSS [peace deal] with President Kiir and other head of the parties to the agreement,” said Puok Both Baluang, Machar’s director for information.
BRAZIL
Bolsonaro under knife again
President Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday underwent surgery to repair an abdominal hernia, his fourth operation since being stabbed in the stomach a year ago at a campaign rally, his doctors said. The operation at Sao Paulo’s Vila Nova Star hospital lasted more than five hours, the medical center reported in a statement signed by his surgeon, Antonio Luiz Macedo. “The procedure was a success,” it said, adding that the president was recovering and in stable condition. Macedo said a significant part of Bolsonaro’s intestine had to be removed after it had become strongly attached to the abdominal wall.
BRAZIL
LGBT publication ban illegal
The Supreme Court on Sunday made it illegal to ban any LGBT publication, after a lower court allowed a mayor to confiscate comic books at the Rio Book Fair containing content he considered “inappropriate” for minors. Mayor Marcelo Crivella, a Protestant and former bishop in the giant Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, on Saturday ordered the comic book removed from sale because of its “sexual content for minors.” The comic that sparked the mayor’s ire showed the Marvel superhero characters Wiccan and Hulkling exchanging a kiss, fully dressed. However, the top court agreed with prosecutor Dias Toffoli and ruled that Crivella’s actions were illegal, because they targeted only LGBT content, violating the constitutional guarantee of equality for all.
GERMANY
Festival blast injures 14
Authorities yesterday said that 14 people were injured, including five with life-threatening burns, during an explosion at a village festival in Freudenberg on Sunday. Police are still investigating the cause of the explosion, but said it was likely that oil inside a big frying pan caused the explosion at the Backesfest, which was attended by about 100 people. The Backesfest celebrates the annual start of operations of a traditional bakery in the village.
PHILIPPINES
Suicide bomber dies
A suicide bomber dressed in an abaya died after detonating a bomb outside a military camp on Jolo island, but no other casualties were reported, authorities said. The attacker on Sunday was “foreign looking and appeared to be a woman, the military said. No group has yet claimed the attack.
SOUTH KOREA
Justice minister takes office
Law professor Cho Kuk took office as minister of justice yesterday, despite a probe by state prosecutors into alleged misconduct by his wife, Chung Kyung-sim. Cho was appointed by President Moon Jae-in with a mandate to reform the prosecutor’s office, even though officials from the office have carried out multiple raids over the past two weeks linked to the scandals involving his family. Moon yesterday said he had “agonized” over the decision, but decided to stick with Cho because it would leave a “bad precedent” if he had dropped the nomination when it was not confirmed that Cho had broken laws himself.
MALAYSIA
Cloud seeding to start
The government is prepared to seed clouds after air quality in parts of Sarawak reached unhealthy levels due to smog from forest fires in Indonesia, Gary Theseira, special functions officer with the Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change, said yesterday. The pollutant index in some places has reached “very unhealthy levels,” he said. “It is extremely severe in Kuching.” Boo Siang Voon, a 47 year-old engineer in Kuching, described the skies as “hazy, hot with smoky smell,” adding: “This year the smog is getting worse. Residents are using face masks. We should not pay the price of our health for the open burning. We want a solution.”
AUSTRALIA
Eight Web sites blocked
The government has ordered Internet service providers to block access to eight Web sites still showing footage of attacks on two mosques in New Zealand on March 15 that killed 51 people, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said on Sunday. “We cannot allow this heinous material to be used to promote, incite or instruct in further terrorist acts,” Grant said. It is an offence for companies not to remove any videos or photographs that show murder, torture or rape without delay.
SOUTH AFRICA
Opposition party cuts jobs
The main opposition Democratic Alliance is cutting jobs after it shed support in May elections and lost state and donor funding. “The reality of the situation with regard staff retrenchments and the absence of bonuses this year is that the organization is in a difficult financial position due to this year’s electoral results where we didn’t achieve the objectives and support we needed,” party spokesman Solly Malatsi said yesterday. “We have lost seats in several legislatures as well as the National Assembly, which had an impact on what the party gets in terms for the funding allocated to parties.”
SRI LANKA
Elephants injure 18 people
An elephant taking part in a Buddhist pageant went berserk on Saturday and at least 18 people were injured. Television footage of a pageant in Kotte showed one elephant in a procession running forward, forcing people to scatter, some of whom ran into an elephant walking at the front. That elephant began running, pushing onlookers out of the way, while the man riding on it narrowly escaped being trampled when he fell off.
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