INDIA
Violence spurs new polls
The government is to rerun voting at 11 polling stations in the northeastern state of Manipur today after reports of violence and damage to voting machines in the state torn by months of ethnic clashes. Election authorities declared the voting void at the locations and ordered the fresh poll, the chief electoral officer of Manipur said in a statement late on Saturday. The main opposition Indian National Congress party had demanded a rerun at 47 Manipur polling stations, saying that booths were captured and elections were rigged.
CHINA
Province braces for flooding
Major rivers, waterways and reservoirs in Guangdong Province are threatening to unleash dangerous floods, forcing the government yesterday to enact emergency response plans to protect more than 127 million people. Calling the situation “grim,” local weather officials said sections of rivers and tributaries at the Xijiang and Beijiang river basins are reaching peak water levels that only happen once in 50 years, state broadcaster China Central Television said. The province has seen torrid downpours for several days and strong winds due to severe convective weather over the past few weeks. Almost 20,000 people have been evacuated in Qingyuan, and some power facilities in Zhaoqing were damaged, state media said. “Please look at Zhaoqing’s Huaiji county, which has become a water town. The elderly and children at the countryside don’t know what to do with power outages and no signal,” said one user on the social media site Sina Weibo.
SOUTH KOREA
Seoul protests offerings
Seoul yesterday protested Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s offering to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine with “deep disappointment” and urged Japanese leaders to show repentance for the country’s wartime past. The shrine is seen by Beijing and Seoul as a symbol of Japan’s past military aggression because it includes 14 Japanese wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal among the 2.5 million war dead honored there. Kishida and some Cabinet members sent ritual offerings to the shrine yesterday, Yonhap news agency reported, citing Japanese media. “The government expresses deep disappointment and regret that Japanese leaders again sent offerings to or visited the Yasukuni Shrine, which glorifies Japan’s war of aggression and enshrines war criminals,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
UNITED STATES
Driver hits home, kills 2
A young brother and sister died and several people were injured, some of them seriously, when a vehicle driven by a suspected drunk driver on Saturday crashed into a young child’s birthday party at a boat club, a Michigan sheriff said. An eight-year-old girl and her five-year-old brother died at the scene in the crash, when a 66-year-old woman drove 7.6m into the building at about 3pm at the Swan Creek Boat Club in Berlin Township, Monroe County Sheriff Troy Goodnough said. “The scene was described by the first responders as extremely chaotic, with high level of emotions of those directly involved and those who witnessed this horrific incident,” he said. Three children and six adults were taken to area hospitals by two helicopters or ambulances with life-threatening injuries, he said. The woman driving the vehicle was taken into custody on suspicion of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated causing death, Goodnough said.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
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
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