PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Province asks for outside aid
Enga Governor Peter Ipatas yesterday called for help from foreign police forces, including neighboring Australia, after more than 50 people were killed in a clash in the highlands. “We are so close to Australia, our security is important to Australia,” he told parliament, calling for a deployment to Enga. “They can give us the manpower and the number of manpower we want, to finally get the culture of policing right.” The brutal killing of as many as 64 tribal fighters along a remote stretch of road in the nation’s highlands on Sunday has fueled fears that violence is spiraling out of control. Prime Minister James Marape has labeled the attack “domestic terrorism.” He is facing a vote of no confidence following deadly riots in major cities last month.
AUSTRALIA
Taekwondo coach kills family
A taekwondo instructor killed a seven-year-old student at his academy and the boy’s parents before going to a Sydney hospital with stab and slash wounds on his body, police said yesterday. Kwang Kyung Yoo, owner of the Lion’s Taekwondo and Martial Arts Academy, is to be charged with three counts of murder, Homicide Detective Superintendent Daniel Doherty said. The bodies were discovered on Tuesday after the instructor admitted himself to a hospital on Monday night with “stab wounds or slash wounds” to his chest, stomach and arms, Doherty said. Police allege that Yoo killed Min Cho, 41, and her son at his academy after a class on Monday before driving to their home, where he killed Cho’s husband and the boy’s father, Steven Cho, 39. All four were born in South Korea and the slain boy had been a regular taekwondo student. “We’re still establishing what other connections or ... what other relationships may have been or may not have been,” Doherty said.
SOUTH AFRICA
‘Death ship’ heads for Iraq
A “death ship” carrying thousands of cattle whose foul smell caused a stink in top tourist city Cape Town was on Tuesday to continue its voyage to Iraq, port officials said. The ship, en route from Brazil and carrying an estimated 19,000 cattle, docked in Cape Town on Sunday, bringing with it a nauseating odor that permeated the city center. A city councilor on Monday confirmed that the smell was from the Al Kuwait vessel, which was immediately boarded by inspectors from the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on Sunday evening. It dubbed the vessel a “Kuwaiti death ship” and attributed the smell to the awful conditions animals endured, having spent two-and-a-half weeks on board, with a buildup of feces and ammonia. “The feces that the cattle were standing is already basically up to the top of their hooves in some pens,” said Grace le Grange, a senior inspector who boarded the vessel. Several animals had to be euthanized due to injuries, she said.
TURKEY
Six arrested for spying
Authorities have detained six people suspected of spying on Uighurs in Turkey for China’s intelligence service, and another suspect was being sought by police, state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Tuesday. Prosecutors in Istanbul identified seven people believed to be gathering information on notable individuals from the Uighur community and some associations tied to them in Turkey, Anadolu said, without providing further details. About 50,000 Uighurs are estimated to live in Turkey, the largest Uighur diaspora outside Central Asia.
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
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