AFGHANISTAN
Governor killed in attack
Badakhshan Acting Provincial Governor Nisar Ahmad Ahmadi was yesterday killed by a suicide bomber, officials said, months after the region’s police chief was killed in a similar attack claimed by the Islamic State group. Security has improved dramatically since the Taliban stormed back to power in August 2021, ousting the US-backed government and ending their two-decade insurgency, but the Islamic State group remains a threat. The bomber drove a car filled with explosives into the vehicle carrying Ahmadi in the provincial capital, Faizabad. “The target of this attack was the vehicle carrying Nisar Ahmad Ahmadi,” said Muazuddin Ahmadi, the head of culture and information in the province. The driver was also killed and six others wounded in the attack, which has so far not been claimed by anyone.
AUSTRALIA
Hanoi pardons Australians
Two Australians sentenced to death in Vietnam have been granted clemency thanks to improving diplomatic relations, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday, after an official visit to the Southeast Asian country. “We make representations on behalf of Australian citizens. And we are very pleased that Vietnam has agreed to the request, and we thank them for it,” Albanese told ABC television. He said he would not reveal the names of the people who were granted clemency as they had requested privacy. Their families have been informed about the decision. Albanese had traveled to Vietnam over the weekend, where he met his counterpart, Pham Minh Chinh, and said the visit provided “an impetus for this outcome.”
VANUATU
Security deal under review
The government yesterday said that a security treaty with Australia would be put to parliament before the end of this year, as concerns over China in the region saw neighboring Papua New Guinea delay signing another such treaty. Prime Ishmael Kalsakau said, during a visit by Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles, that a security treaty signed with Australia in December last year is still being examined. Some Vanuatu politicians who favor ties with China have expressed concern over the deal. The National Security Council was “going through the text” and it will next be considered by his government’s Council of Ministers, Kalsakau said in the capital, Port Vila. “It will be presented for ratification before the end of this year in Parliament,” he said.
CHINA
Tuition rises up to 54%
Chinese universities are drastically increasing tuition fees this year, with some making their first increases in two decades, hurt by a reduced national budget for tertiary education and tight local government finances. The higher fees come amid a financial crunch among local governments after three years of disruptive COVID-19 policies, a property crisis and a sluggish economy. Chinese universities, almost all public, rely heavily on state funding. Shanghai-based East China University of Science and Technology raised tuition fees by 54 percent to 7,700 yuan (US$1,082) annually for some first-year students majoring in science, engineering and physical education, and by 30 percent in the liberal arts, statements issued on Sunday said. Sichuan and Jilin provinces also raised tuition for different majors, with the maximum increase as much as 41 percent in Sichuan, local government statements 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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