PHILIPPINES
Three hurt in China standoff
Three navy personnel were injured in the latest China Coast Guard water cannon attack on a Filipino supply vessel near a South China Sea reef, National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said yesterday. The government said that Saturday’s confrontation caused severe damage to the Unaizah May 4 vessel while it was on its way to deliver troops and provisions to a Philippine navy ship grounded atop the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙). The extent and nature of the injuries to the navy personnel was not disclosed, but the military said they were treated aboard a coast guard escort ship.
MEXICO
Search continues for missing
Authorities were on Saturday searching for two dozen people in Sinaloa state reported to have been kidnapped along with more than 40 others who have since been found alive. “In total, 66 people were allegedly deprived of their freedom ... of which 42 [24 adults and 18 children] have been located,” Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha Moya wrote on X. The local government has not reported any possible motives behind the kidnappings. On Friday, an emergency hotline received reports of abductions from several homes in a working-class neighborhood of Culiacan, Sinaloa Department of Public Security Secretary Gerardo Merida said in a brief statement. On Thursday, an armed clash left three people dead in Badiraguato, the birthplace of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in the US.
UNITED KINGDOM
China targets lawmakers
Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden is today to report to parliament on a string of cyberattacks launched by China targeting a group of lawmakers, the Times reported. Meanwhile, members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) have been called on to attend a briefing from Parliament Director of Security Alison Giles, the newspaper said, without saying where it obtained the information. The attacks are part of a wave of state-backed interference aimed at undermining British democracy, the Times said. “About a year ago the Belgian and French foreign ministries publicly confirmed [Chinese state] sponsored cyberattacks against our members, IPAC executive director Luke de Pulford said on Friday. “Other countries have done the same privately. Beijing has made no secret of their desire to attack foreign politicians who dare to stand up to them.”
LAOS
Bear cubs found in home
Sixteen undernourished Asiatic black bear cubs have been found in a home in Vientiane by a conservation charity, the largest rescue of the year. Free the Bears said they found 17 cubs in the private home in Laos early last week, but that one of them had already died. “When we arrived at the house there were bear cubs everywhere,” said Fatong Yang, animal manager with the charity. The group found 10 males and six females, weighing between 1.3kg and 4kg and believed to be about two to four months old. “Cubs this small are extremely vulnerable. In the wild their mothers would never leave them and we suspect the mothers were killed by poachers,” Fatong said in a statement over the weekend. Police were alerted after a neighbor heard the cries of one of the cubs, the group said. Thousands of the animals are kept as pets or farmed to extract their bile for use in costly traditional medicine. “This is the most bears we’ve rescued in a single year and we’re only three months into 2024,” he said.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
‘SIGNS OF ESCALATION’: Russian forces have been aiming to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas province and have been capturing new villages as they move toward Pokrovsk Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Saturday said that Ukraine faced increasing difficulties in its fight against Moscow’s invasion as Russian forces advance and North Korean troops prepare to join the Kremlin’s campaign. Syrskyi, relating comments he made to a top US general, said outnumbered Ukrainian forces faced Russian attacks in key sectors of the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a nightly address said that Ukraine’s military command was focused on defending around the town of Kurakhove — a target of Russia’s advances along with Pokrovsk, a logistical hub to the north. He decried strikes
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