■ NEW ZEALAND
Big tax cuts announced
Taxpayers are to see their biggest personal tax cuts in 20 years in the annual budget as the Labour-led government battles to reverse sagging voter support ahead of a general election due by mid-November. Finance Minister Michael Cullen unveiled the NZ$62 billion (US$48 billion) budget yesterday, set to take effect in July. The centerpiece is a NZ$10.6 billion package of personal tax cuts — timed to take effect on Oct. 1, just weeks ahead of the poll. The income tax cuts — the first from Cullen in nine annual budgets he has delivered — are to roll out over three years.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Hostage pays US$10.3m
Police said yesterday they have arrested a 53-year-old man for kidnapping his millionaire former college classmate and extorting US$10.3 million from him. Police said the suspect, identified only as Lee, was arrested on Wednesday, a day after the victim was released from an 80-day confinement. Lee was accused of colluding with seven colleagues, who are still being hunted, to steal 10.8 billion won (US$10.3 million). The gang periodically drugged their victim to prevent him from contacting police and at other times ordered him to talk with his family by telephone so they would not become suspicious, the JoongAng Daily reported. They forced him to take out loans worth 7.8 billion won using his properties as collateral and drained 3 billion won from his bank account. Police started an investigation after the victim’s sister told them his home had been vacant for a long time and he was calling her at unusual hours. He was freed unharmed on Tuesday.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Tourist strips after whistles
An Israeli tourist who felt harassed when road workers whistled at her yesterday stripped naked in response, police said. Workmen in the small farming town of Kerikeri were repairing the main street when the young woman took offense at their attention. She calmly stripped bare to use an ATM, then put her clothes back on and walked away. Sergeant Peter Masters said the woman told police she didn’t take kindly to the men’s wolf-whistles. “She said she had thought, ‘I’ll show them what I’ve got,’” he said. “She’s not an unattractive-looking lady. She was taken back to the police station and spoken to and told that was inappropriate [behavior] in New Zealand,” he added.
■ UNITED STATES
Arctic voyage record set
A British yachtsman became the first man to sail around the world via the Arctic north of Russia on Wednesday. Adrian Flanagan, 47, set off on his 48,000km trip in October 2005 and returned to The Royal Southern Yacht Club on Wednesday morning. The Kenyan-born adventurer said it was a “tremendous relief” to have finished but added that there was “not a prayer” he would do it again because of the dangers it entailed. Incidents en route included being followed by pirates in Brazil and being swept overboard from his stainless steel sloop Barrabas just five days into the challenge.
■ GERMANY
Log tosser suspect arrested
Police arrested a 30-year-old drug user on Wednesday, accusing him of hurling a log off a bridge over a highway and killing a mother in the passenger seat of a moving car on March 23. That attack led to a spate of copycat attacks all over country. Nikolai H has admitted deliberately throwing the 6kg chunk of wood, which smashed through the windscreen of a family’s car on autobahn No. 29 near Oldenburg, police said. A 33-year-old woman in the car was killed nearly instantly. Her husband and two children survived. The suspect came forward on April 5, initially claiming he had discovered the log lying on the road before the attack and shifted it to the roadside so it would not be an obstruction. Police said he later admitted to throwing the log.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
CCTV nabs dog owners
The Northampton Borough Council has come under fire for using surveillance laws designed to combat organized criminals and terrorists to catch dog owners whose pets foul the grass. Member of Parliament Brian Binley condemned the council for employing the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to track down dog owners who do not clean up after their pet. Council figures show RIPA powers had been used five times since the act came into force in 2000 to take action against owners who failed to clear up after their dogs. A council spokeswoman said she could not say what sort of surveillance was undertaken, but that it could have been the use of CCTV cameras or simply a neighborhood warden keeping tabs on dog walkers. Other municipal councils, including Derby, Bolton, Gateshead and Hartlepool, have also admitted to using RIPA to fight dog mess.
■ KENYA
Mob burns 11 for witchcraft
A mob tied up at least 11 people accused of witchcraft and burnt them to death in a remote western village, police said Wednesday. Police were on patrol in Nyakeo to prevent revenge attacks after eight women and three men, 10 of them aged between 70 and 90, were lynched and burned to death on Tuesday, a spokesman said. Villagers have said the mob had killed 15 women. Provincial police chief Anthony Kibuchi, however, said only 11 bodies, including those of three men, had been found so far. The region, populated mainly by the Kisii tribe, has been the “sorcery belt” due to the number of mob attacks on women suspected of witchcraft. Efforts by the authorities to clamp down on vigilante and mob justice have been unsuccessful.
■ FRANCE
Unions takes to the streets
The country’s five largest unions staged nationwide protests yesterday against plans by President Nicolas Sarkozy to make people work one year longer to qualify for a full pension. The unions called on members to rally in dozens of cities to denounce the move.
■ SAUDI ARABIA
Court ruling sparks outrage
A US-based rights group has voiced outrage at a Saudi court for failing to punish the employers of an Indonesian housemaid who abused her so much she had to have her toes and fingers amputated. Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for an appeals court to “impose stiff penalties on the employers, including imprisonment and payment of significant financial compensation” to the woman, Nour Miyati. HRW said on Wednesday that Miyati told the organization her “employers beat her daily and that she had to work long hours without rest or pay.” “They withheld her passport ... locked her in the workplace and denied her adequate food.” All charges against Miyati’s male employer were dropped, while the female employer confessed but was later found not guilty.
■ UNITED STATES
Crash victims win US$6m
Victims of a 2003 car crash at a California market that left 10 people dead and more than 60 injured agreed on a US$6 million settlement on Wednesday, lawyers said. The settlement was announced shortly before a civil trial seeking damages for wrongful death and personal injury against Bayside City Corp, the city of Santa Monica and the driver in the crash, George Weller, was due to start. An earlier civil action saw other plaintiffs receive a US$15 million settlement. Weller, who was at 86 at the time of the crash, was convicted of vehicular manslaughter in 2006.
■ UNITED STATES
Deer runs into salon
A disoriented deer smashed its way into a suburban hair salon and a customer wrestled with the animal to keep it from ramming into his 11-year-old son or other youngsters. “I’m a father. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to those kids,” Randy Goepfert said after Tuesday’s confrontation. Three hairdressers and several parents and children were in the Holiday Hair salon in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, when the white-tail crashed through the glass door. Goepfert grabbed the buck by the neck and slammed it to the floor, then climbed on top and began choking it. A state Game Commission officer later tranquilized the deer, but it had injuries and had to be euthanized.
■ COLOMBIA
Ex-soldier takes hostages
A retired soldier toting a grenade threatened to kill himself and several hostages at a Bogota office on Wednesday before undercover police acting as reporters wrestled him to the ground. Local CityTV showed images of the man, who demanded a pension at the benefits office as he paced about nervously clasping a hand grenade in front of a group of hostages sitting in chairs and reporters allowed in to interview the man. “I am basically asking for my pension,” the man told the CityTV reporter inside the office. Authorities said three officers got inside the building and surprised the man with a paralyzing device. Local media identified the man as Edgar Paz, who said he served two decades in the armed forces.
■ MEXICO
Donkey freed from jail
A donkey has been freed from jail after doing time for acting like a jackass. “Blacky” was jailed for biting and kicking two men near Tuxtla Gutierrez. Officials freed the donkey after its owner paid a fine and the US$115 hospital bill of the men, who suffered bites to the chest and a broken ankle. Authorities say he also must pay US$480 to each man for missed work.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in