CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Iraqi city of Mosul, which is held by Islamic State movement fighters, on Monday became the second terrorist hot-spot to be declared off-limits to Australians under new counterterrorism laws aimed deterring foreign fighters. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the Mosul district in northern Iraq had been declared a designated area under a section of the Criminal Code created in October last year.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Two airplane catastrophes put Malaysia on the map in a bad way in 2014. But they didn’t hurt the country’s tourism, and the higher visibility may even have helped: visitor numbers had their strongest growth in years. For the past decade, Malaysia has run an elaborate campaign to market itself abroad as an ideal Asian destination, touting a multiethnic culture, lush rainforests and pristine beaches. Despite the effort to internationalize, its tourism industry still relies heavily on tightly-packed neighboring Singapore and in a renewed push the government had designated 2014 as “Visit Malaysia Year.”
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Monday fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea and warned of “merciless strikes” against its enemies as allies Seoul and Washington launched annual military drills Pyongyang claims are preparation for a northward invasion. North Korea regularly conducts such test firings of missiles, rockets and artillery, and they are often timed to express the country’s dissatisfaction with actions by Washington and Seoul. Monday was the start of military drills that will run until the end of April.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan army is waging its largest-ever solo offensive against the Taliban, hoping to strike a decisive blow ahead of the spring fighting season and prove it can rout the insurgents without the aid of U.S. and NATO combat troops. Afghan troops have been slowly pushing up through a fertile river valley in the southern Helmand province, with special forces mounting nighttime helicopter raids into mud brick compounds and ground troops gradually advancing across the poppy fields that in past years have furnished the insurgents’ main cash crop.
LETPADAN, Myanmar (AP) — Truckloads of police on Monday prevented hundreds of student protesters from continuing their march to Myanmar’s biggest city to push for educational reform. Students have been marching from Myanmar’s second-largest city of Mandalay to Yangon, the old capital, since January, demanding changes to a recently passed education law that they say inhibits academic freedom.
SYDNEY (AP) — Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia will lead a trial of an enhanced method of tracking aircraft over remote oceans to allow planes to be more easily found should they vanish like Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Australia’s transport minister said Sunday. The announcement comes one week ahead of the anniversary of the disappearance of Flight 370, which vanished last year during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people on board. No trace of the plane has been found.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Iraqi city of Mosul, which is held by Islamic State movement fighters, has become the second terrorist hot-spot to be declared off-limits to Australians under a new counterterrorism law aimed at deterring foreign fighters. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Monday that the Mosul district in northern Iraq had been declared a so-called designated area under a section of the Criminal Code created in October last year.
PARIS (AP) — French cultural officials say 15 pieces of art have been stolen from a Chinese museum south of Paris, including a replica crown of the King of Siam given to France’s emperor in the mid-19th century. The Culture Ministry says the break-in before dawn Sunday at the Chinese Museum at Fontainebleau Castle was over in less than seven minutes.
BEIJING (AP) — Prince William presented China’s president with a large envelope Monday containing an invitation from the queen to visit Britain this year, as he began the first official visit to mainland China by a senior British royal in a generation. President Xi Jinping told the prince that he thanked Queen Elizabeth II for the invitation. “I look forward to meeting her majesty and other British leaders during the visit and to jointly plan out the future of Sino-British relations,” Xi said during the meeting in the Great Hall of the People, the seat of China’s legislature. “The British royal family has great influence, not just in Britain but across the world.”
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — A Canadian tourist with several previous child sex convictions has been sentenced to seven years in prison in Nepal for sexually abusing a minor boy, the court said Monday. The Lalitpur district court said that Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh, 71, from the province of Nova Scotia, was also ordered to pay $10,000 to the victim by the judge in his ruling on Sunday.
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police arrested nearly three dozen people Sunday after scuffles broke out in the latest protest against the growing influx of mainland Chinese shoppers. Police officers drew batons and used pepper spray on the crowds after the demonstration in a border town turned unruly. The protesters clashed with crowds of residents opposed to the event who taunted them along the route.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The yearlong search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has turned up no sign of the plane, but that doesn’t mean it’s been unproductive. It has yielded lessons and discoveries that could benefit millions, including coastal Australians, air and sea travelers and scientists trying to understand ancient changes to the earth’s crust. The knowledge gained so far is of little comfort to family and friends of the 239 people still missing from the plane, which vanished last March 8 during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. While finding the plane remains the top priority for searchers and investigators, what they’re learning along the way may prove valuable long after the search ends.
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar’s forestry department has captured a rare white elephant in the jungles of the country’s western Ayeyarwaddy region, an official said Sunday. The 7-year-old female was captured Friday, six weeks after it was initially spotted in a reserve in Pathein township, forestry official Tun Tun Oo said. It’s the ninth white elephant in captivity in the country.
SRINAGAR, India (AP) — India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party formed a coalition government in Kashmir on Sunday, marking the first time it will hold a leadership position in the disputed Muslim-majority region. Leaders from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Peoples Democratic Party were sworn into office in the state’s winter capital of Jammu amid tight security in a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
ISHINOMAKI, Japan (AP) — Britain’s Prince William stood atop a hill in northeastern Japan on Sunday, and stretched below him was barren land known as the “Bay of Destruction,” which was swept by a tsunami four years ago. On the last leg of his four-day visit to Japan, William laid a bouquet near a shrine gate that overlooks the bay, to commemorate the victims. Of the nearly 19,000 people who died in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, nearly 3,300 were residents of the coastal town of Ishinomaki. About 22,000 lost their homes.
