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.
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
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
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
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