MALAYSIA
Haze-hit state sent masks
The government has sent half-a-million masks to the eastern state of Sarawak, where air pollution levels have spiked amid worsening forest fires in Indonesia, the National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA) said yesterday. The smoldering fires that Indonesian farmers often use to clear land produce a choking haze that drifts over the region. “NADMA has acquired 500,000 face masks and sent them to the agency’s branch in Sarawak,” it said in a statement. The air pollution index in Sarawak reached unhealthy levels yesterday, with one district recording a reading of 201, a “very unhealthy” level.
SYRIA
War damaged 120 churches
More than 120 Christian places of worship have been damaged or destroyed by all sides in the country’s eight-year conflict, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said on Monday. Some of the attacks were deliberate, such as the Islamic State group using bulldozers to destroy the ancient Saint Elian Monastery in Homs Province in 2015, but most were caused by frontline combat, shelling or rockets, the monitoring group said. “Targeting Christian places of worship is a form of intimidation against and displacement of the Christian minority,” group chairman Fadel Abdul Ghany said.
THE NETHERLANDS
Family drama kills three
At least three people were killed in an apparent family shooting at a home in the southern city of Dordrecht on Monday, police and news reports said. “The shooter is believed to have been a police officer who also shot himself,” the tabloid newspaper De Telegraaf said, adding that a fourth family member was seriously wounded and taken to the hospital. “Three people have been killed and another was seriously wounded,” Rotterdam police tweeted, without further details. Dordrecht Mayor Wouter Kolff tweeted that he was “very touched and sympathized with everyone involved.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Terrorists thwarted 22 times
Authorities have foiled 22 attacks since March 2017, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu told a conference on international terrorism in Herzliya, Israel, on Monday. Seven related to “suspected right-wing terrorism,” Basu said, according to the text distributed by Scotland Yard. Attacks are becoming easier to carry out and harder to detect, he added. He promoted the merits of “Prevent,” a counter-terrorism program that is designed to spot and deter people who might be vulnerable to recruitment by violent radicals. “Prevent is designed to break the cycle of extremist violence by empowering communities and individuals,” Basu said.
UNITED STATES
NRA sues city over label
The National Rifle Association (NRA) on Monday sued San Francisco after the city’s Board of Supervisors made a declaration stating that the NRA is a terrorist organization, the San Francisco Chronicle and other media reported. The NRA, a gun club and gun rights lobbying group with deep political influence, alleged in the suit that the city was violating its free speech rights for political reasons, the reports said. However, San Francisco Supervisor Catherine Stefani, who introduced the measure, said that she believed their action would stand up in court, according to the New York Times. “It’s a resolution. It’s not an ordinance. It’s non-binding,” she told the newspaper.
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