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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS