BANGKOK (AP) — The father grimaced and wept as he struggled to contain his grief at the death of his two children in a grenade attack during a weekend trip to a mall in downtown Bangkok — the latest casualties in Thailand’s months of political crisis. “I’m asking and pleading to every side to let my children be the last case (of violence) on Thai soil,” Tayakorn Yos-ubon, 33, said, his voice shaking, before retrieving their bodies from the morgue Monday.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Gaping holes in Afghanistan’s health care system are being obscured by misleading narratives of success ahead of the international troop withdrawal in 2014, aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres warns in a new report published Tuesday. MSF — or Doctors Without Borders — said that while some progress has been made from the last decade of international investment, access to medical care in Afghanistan remains severely limited and poorly adapted to meet the needs of an ongoing conflict — partly because decisions about humanitarian aid have been influenced by political and military objectives instead of Afghans’ pressing needs.
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP) — Mohammed Aqeel spent weeks at home in Pakistan waiting for death after suffering a debilitating spinal cord injury in a car crash before friends suggested he come to St. Joseph’s Hospice on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad. Now 13 years later, his life and those of some 40 others who live on its grounds might be changed forever as this hospital of last resort faces closure over its rising debts.
NEW DELHI (AP) — In a reversal, India’s government told the Supreme Court on Monday that it will not use a severe anti-piracy law when it tries two Italian marines accused of killing two Indian fishermen in 2012. Attorney General Goolam Vahanvati told the court that the government has decided that the law, which carries the death penalty, will not apply in the case.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Filipino fishermen have reported that a Chinese coast guard vessel used a water cannon to drive them away from a disputed shoal, the Philippine military chief said Monday, adding that his forces seek to avoid trouble but would respond if any country involved in regional territorial disputes uses force against Filipinos. Gen. Emmanuel Bautista said the military is investigating the Jan. 27 incident at Scarborough Shoal, a rich fishing ground off the northwestern Philippines. The shoal came under China’s effective control after Philippine vessels backed off from a tense standoff with Chinese ships in the area in 2012.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s foreign minister is trying to distance his government from recent right-wing comments on World War II, calling them “regrettable” and saying they don’t represent the government’s views. In an interview with The Associated Press, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida also said that China’s military expansion in the region is a concern, but he stopped short of calling it a threat.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan officials on Monday mourned the loss of 21 soldiers killed by the Taliban in the single deadliest incident for the Afghan army in at least a year, as new details emerged about the attack which threatened to further strain relations with neighboring Pakistan. The soldiers died Sunday when hundreds of heavily armed Taliban insurgents attacked two remote army checkpoints near to each other in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar Province. Officials said that five Afghan soldiers are missing.
TOKYO (AP) — Honda appointed a woman to its board for the first time and gave a major promotion to a foreigner in signs the automaker wants to change perceptions of a hidebound corporate culture. Technology expert Hideko Kunii, 66, will join the board, and Issao Mizoguchi, a Brazilian of Japanese ancestry, who has worked with Honda’s South American operations for nearly 30 years, has been appointed operating officer, Honda Motor Co. said Monday. The appointments need shareholder approval at a meeting set for June.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine police arrested a key commander of the main Muslim rebel group that recently concluded a peace deal with the government, the national police chief said Monday in a move criticized by the insurgents. Director-General Alan Purisima said police and marine forces arrested Wahid Tundok, a commander of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front wanted for multiple murder and other charges, on Sunday at a checkpoint in southern Cotabato city. Tundok and several of his armed followers were taken to a local military headquarters for questioning.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Torrential rains triggered floods and landslides that killed at least 11 people in Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua, an official said Monday. Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said two people are still missing after the landslides hit three locations in the provincial capital of Jayapura.
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) — The U.S. Naval War College released a trove of World War II information Monday by posting online the operational diary kept by the Pacific commander, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, during the war against Japan. The 4,000-page multivolume collection includes a running summary of the situation for every day of the war in the Pacific compiled by Nimitz’s planning staff. It is the only known similar document to survive from the war, said Prof. John Hattendorf, who teaches maritime history at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — At least seven mourners were killed and 37 others were injured when a suspension bridge broke as they were transporting a coffin to a graveyard in northern Vietnam, police said Monday. Police officer Phung Quang Tuyen said cables on one side of the year-old bridge in Lai Chau province’s Tam Duong district snapped, causing the group to fall about 20 meters (65 feet) onto rocks. He said 23 of the injuries were serious.
BANNU, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen killed a top leader of the Pakistani Taliban in a tribal region near Afghan border on Monday, intelligence officials and militant commanders said. Asmatullah Shaheen Bitani and three aides died in a shooting in Darga Mandi area of North Waziristan, the four officials and two militants said.
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — An Islamist prisoner who had been freed by gunmen was killed hours later in a gunfight between his accomplices and Bangladesh security officials, a police official said Monday. Rakibul Hasan and two other convicted militants escaped on Sunday when dozens of gunmen exploded bombs and opened fire on the van transporting them. One policeman was killed in the attack in Mymensingh district, 112 kilometers (70 miles) north of the capital, Dhaka.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A year ago, North Korea vowed nuclear attacks to retaliate for U.S.-South Korean war games. But the start Monday of this year’s joint military drills comes as Pyongyang allows wrenching reunions of elderly Koreans separated since the Korean War. As always with the rival Koreas, cold political calculations loom behind the scenes of pure emotion.
