JAPAN
Quake missing triples
The number of people unaccounted for after the New Year’s Day earthquake more than tripled yesterday to 323, while the death toll rose to 168, local authorities said. A heavy dumping of snow meanwhile complicated relief efforts a week after the magnitude 7.5 quake, with more than 2,000 people still cut off and many others lacking power or forced to take shelter in crowded emergency sites. A new list published by Ishikawa Prefecture showed the number of missing people soaring from 31 to 281 in Wajima, one of the worst-hit places where the quake flatted dozens of houses and a major fire devastated a large area. Meanwhile, Tokyo’s Haneda airport yesterday reopened the runway a week after a fatal collision between a Japan Airlines airliner and a coast guard aircraft.
BANGLADESH
Hasina re-elected
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has swept to power for a fourth consecutive term in Bangladesh, following an election on Sunday that was boycotted by opposition parties and roiled by violent protests and international scrutiny. Her Awami League party won 224 seats out of 299, local media reported, cementing a majority in parliament and extending her 15-year-long rule that has already made her one of the most defining and divisive leaders in the nation’s history. Official results from the Election Commission were expected later yesterday.
INDIA
Rape convicts re-jailed
The Supreme Court yesterday said that 11 men convicted of a gang rape that drew global outrage, but who were released early, must return to jail. Bilkis Bano and two of her children were the only survivors among a group of Muslims attacked by a Hindu mob in Gujarat in 2002 during one of the country’s worst religious riots. Bilkis was pregnant at the time and seven of the 14 people murdered were relatives, including her three-year-old daughter. The convicts were freed in August 2022 following a recommendation by a state government panel, but must now return to jail within two weeks, the court ruled. “To keep them out would not be in consonance of the rule of law,” it said, adding that “arguments with emotional appeal become hollow when placed in juxtaposition with the facts of the case.”
AUSTRALIA
Nazi salute banned
Laws banning the Nazi salute and the display or sale of symbols associated with terror groups came into effect yesterday as the government responds to a rise in anti-Semitic incidents amid the Israel-Gaza war. The law makes it an offense punishable by up to 12 months in prison to publicly perform the Nazi salute, or display the Nazi swastika or the double-sig rune associated with the Schutzstaffel paramilitary group.
ECUADOR
Top criminal disappears
The country’s “most-wanted prisoner,” the leader of the Los Choneros criminal group, disappeared from the jail where he was being held, authorities said on Sunday. National Police Commander General Cesar Zapata told a news conference that the armed forces had determined that one of the inmates in the Guayaquil prison was missing. While Zapata did not mention the inmate by name, the prosecutor’s office said it would investigate “the alleged escape” of Jose Adolfo Macias, the leader of Los Choneros. Macias, whose alias is “Fito,” was sentenced in 2011 to 34 years in prison for crimes including drug trafficking and murder.
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
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
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
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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