Taiwan detains Togolese ship linked to China near undersea cable

Today's news: Bangladesh student leader leaves the interim government to found a new party; Tanks in Jenin, Israel: we'll stay for a year, 40 thousand displaced persons; Bridge collapses in South Korea, four deaths in the construction site; Thaksin ‘apologises’ for the lack of justice in the Tak Bal massacre; Catholic priest arrested in Belarus for anti-war comments.

TAIWAN-CHINA

The Taiwanese coastguard has declared that it has stopped the progress of a cargo ship linked to China after an underwater cable near the Penghu islands, in the delicate Taiwan Strait, was disconnected. The coastguard said it sent three ships to detain the Hong Tai 58, registered in Togo, which anchored near the undersea cable off the southwestern coast of Taiwan while it was disconnected. According to the coastguard, it is a Chinese-linked ship flying a flag of convenience.

BANGLADESH

The Minister of Information Nahad Islam, who was one of the leaders of the July uprising, has announced that he has left his post in the interim government of Bangladesh. Nahid will be the president of a new political party formed by students that will be launched on 28 February.

SOUTH KOREA

In South Korea a bridge has collapsed this morning at a motorway construction site in Anseong, a city about 65 kilometres south of Seoul. Four people, including a Chinese worker, have died and six others have been injured after several slabs placed on a pillar fell to the ground for reasons yet to be ascertained.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

Israel has sent tanks into the West Bank city of Jenin in the first such deployment in the area in more than two decades, as troops step up operations in the territory that officials say will last at least a year. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday that the latest West Bank operation was expanding and that troops would remain in urban hotspots in the area ‘for the next year,’ meaning that some 40,000 people displaced by the fighting will not be able to return to their homes.

THAILAND

Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Sunday apologised for the failure to arrest those responsible for the Tak Bai massacre, which claimed the lives of 85 ethnic Malay Thai Muslims in Narathiwat province twenty years ago. He did so on Sunday during a visit to the Saphan Wittaya school in the Cho Ai Rong district of Narathiwat. His visits to Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat were aimed at holding peace talks with the local Muslim communities in his capacity as advisor to the Malaysian presidency of ASEAN.

TURKEY-UZBEKISTAN

The Turkish special services have arrested an Uzbek citizen, Abdulmalik A., who entered the country via an EU country and is suspected of preparing terrorist attacks against a synagogue and some Jewish schools, acting on behalf of ISIS. The Turkish services managed to infiltrate the encrypted channels used by the terrorists to discuss their plans.

BELARUS

In Lida, a city in western Belarus, a Catholic priest, Father Dmitrij Malets, vicar of the parish of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, was arrested for some of his messages of support on social media for anti-war texts. When he was serving in the parish of Novogrudka he had been called up, but his recruitment was cancelled due to the resonance of his pacifist prayers and farewell liturgies by the faithful.

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