ISRAEL – PALESTINE
Alessandro Parini, a 35-year-old Italian tourist from Rome, was killed and seven other people wounded in a terror attack carried out by a Palestinian on Tel Aviv's waterfront. The attack came after a woman and her two daughters from a Jewish settlement were shot in their car yesterday morning in the northern Jordan Valley. While the daughters died, the mother is fighting for her life. These deaths came at a time when Easter, Passover and Ramadan overlap amid a tragic trail of blood and violence that includes Hamas launching rockets against Israel and Israeli air raids against Palestinian targets.
CHINA – TAIWAN
Forty-two Chinese fighter jets briefly crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait at the start of Chinese military drills in response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's meeting with US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles.
PHILIPPINES
Eight people were nailed to a cross to commemorate the sufferings of Jesus in a gory Good Friday tradition that draws thousands of faithful and tourists to the Philippines. Even though the practice has been rejected by the Catholic Church, crucifixions in the farming village of San Pedro Cutud in Pampanga province, north of Manila, resumed after a three-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.
JAPAN – CAMBODIA
Nineteen Japanese citizens have been arrested in Cambodia in connection with alleged phone scams in Japan. This follows a crackdown by Japanese authorities against organised crime groups based outside the country. Cambodian police investigated a hotel in the southern province of Sihanoukville in January after the Japanese embassy in Cambodia was informed of a potential group of scammers operating from the facility.
INDIA
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Telangana today for the inauguration of the Secunderabad-Tirupati high-speed rail line, connecting Hyderabad, India's information technology capital, to the Venkateswara Temple in Tirupati, an important Hindu place of worship. This is the second high-speed train inaugurated in Telangana in three months.
VIETNAM – RUSSIA
Russia’s Rosatom company signed a contract with Vietnam's Atomic Energy Institute (VINATOM) to build a centre for nuclear science and technologies in the Vietnamese province of Dongai. The agreement will be finalised in June in the presence of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, after a competition that will start in the coming days.
RUSSIA
Residents in Khabarovsk, in Russia's Far East, have been calling for the release of former governor Sergei Furgal who was arrested three years ago, earning the region the title as the country's “most protesting” region. The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor, RKN), Russia’s censorship agency, has reported that more than 800 protesters have been arrested in the past year alone.
