ISRAEL
Four killed in attack
Two Palestinian attackers on Tuesday opened fire at a restaurant and gas station near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, killing four Israelis and wounding several other people before they were shot dead, authorities said. The military said it was sending reinforcements to the West Bank and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “settle the score with the murderers.” “I want to tell all those who seek to harm us — all options are open,” he said in a video statement. “We will continue to fight terror with all our might.” Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the Palestinian shooters, affiliated with Hamas, drove to the scene from the Palestinian village of Urif in the northern West Bank. A civilian bystander shot one of the assailants repeatedly, killing him. Hamas identified him as 26-year-old Mohannad Faleh. After an hours-long manhunt, security forces caught the second shooter in the West Bank town of Tubas, shooting and killing him when he tried to run out of his car.
AUSTRALIA
Tibet CTA head warns of war
The head of an India-based organization known as Tibet’s government-in-exile yesterday said that a destabilizing economic downturn in China could prompt Beijing to attack Taiwan or India, and this dynamic should be closely watched. Penpa Tsering, known as the Sikyong of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), was speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra, and compared Chinese policies to move Tibetan children into boarding schools, and DNA collection, to Australia’s past disgraced policy of removing indigenous children from families. Tsering said that Beijing kept flash points burning with India, Taiwan and in the South China Sea, but its priority was the economy, which was in a downturn with rising youth unemployment. “China is very insecure today so we have to keep watching the dynamism and see, because right now my analysis is if there is a threat to the survival of the [Chinese] Communist Party then they will definitely attack one of these places,” he said in response to reporters’ questions.
JAPAN
Eugenics report slammed
Campaigners yesterday slammed a government report into the sterilization of thousands under a eugenics law in place until 1996, saying it failed to take responsibility for the procedures. The 1,400-page report submitted to parliament this week details how about 16,500 people — including some as young as nine — were sterilized without their consent under the law in force from 1948. About 8,500 more were sterilized after their consent was obtained, though campaigners have cast doubt on how freely agreement was given. The law allowed doctors to sterilize people with heritable intellectual disabilities, to “prevent ... poor quality descendants.” In 2019, lawmakers passed legislation offering each victim government compensation of ￥3.2 million (US$22,533) — an amount campaigners called insufficient given the damage inflicted. Lawmakers also commissioned the report made public this week, which Koji Niisato, a lawyer who has represented victims of the policy, said fell short. It is “largely a compilation of what has been investigated and reported” which merely confirms “that it was an extremely terrible law,” he told journalists yesterday. However, “it lacks a summary of why this terrible law was enacted and existed for 48 years, and fails to mention why the government didn’t take responsibility even after the law was amended,” he said. “That is extremely regrettable.”
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
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
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
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,
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