■ CAMBODIA
Court closes to opposition
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy went to court yesterday to refute defamation charges brought by the foreign minister over Khmer Rouge remarks, but no one was there to take his evidence. The door to the court was locked when Sam Rainsy arrived. After a security guard let him in, prosecutors did not show up to receive the documents he wanted to file in his defense, he said. “The prosecutors all fled. They are scared by Sam Rainsy,” he told reporters as he left the court.
■ HONG KONG
Tycoon under investigation
A Shanghai tycoon who made his fortune building highways is at the center of a 4.3 billion yuan (US$627 million) fraud investigation, state media reported yesterday. Police detained Liu Genshan (劉根山), 51, one of China’s richest men, a week ago on suspicion of money laundering and fraudulent bank loans, the Shanghai Daily said. His business strategy was to buy highways using bank loans and turn them into listed companies, the report said. Liu reportedly financed seven highways in Shanghai and Zhejiang Province. Although one road cost 420 million yuan to build, the company’s official investment was listed as more than eight times that — at 3.5 billion yuan, the report said. Investments in other projects were apparently similarly inflated while construction on two were halted because of a lack of funds, the newspaper said.
■ CHINA
Canadian found dead
Police said yesterday they suspected a Canadian woman found dead in a Shanghai apartment was murdered. The woman was identified as Diana Gabrielle O’Brien, a police spokesman said. She had been in China for less than two weeks when she was found dead in an apartment in Shanghai’s Changning district before dawn on Monday, a police statement said. The 22-year-old British Colombia woman was an aspiring model who had come to Shanghai hoping to launch an international career, Toronto’s Globe and Mail reported. But her contract with a Chinese-based agency turned out to be a job as a bar dancer, the paper said. O’Brien had told a friend she was unhappy in China and would be returning home within weeks, the newspaper said.
■ CAMBODIA
‘Ice’ smuggler sentenced
A court has sentenced an Australian man to six years in prison for trying to smuggle out of the country 40g of the drug known as “ice,” a judge said yesterday. Simon Peter Conway, 50, was convicted of drug trafficking in a trial on Tuesday and sentenced to six years and a US$2,500 fine, Judge Chan Madina said. He was arrested in October at Phnom Penh International Airport after authorities found 40g of the methamphetamine with him.
■ CHINA
Police kill five in Xinjiang
Police shot and killed five suspected criminals who were resisting arrest in China’s remote northwestern Xinjiang region, Xinhua news agency reported. Police opened fire on a group of 15 suspects after one of them stabbed a police officer on Tuesday in the regional capital of Urumqi, officials said. Five of the suspects were killed, two were being treated in hospital and the other eight had been arrested, the report said. The suspects, who were armed with knives, had earlier broken into a beauty salon and assaulted the owner, Xinhua cited the police as saying. Police then reportedly tracked them to their hideout where the killings occurred.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Rape victim wins ruling
A woman assaulted by a serial rapist has won the right to sue the attacker who became a millionaire by winning the lottery while in prison. A judge ruled on Tuesday that the 78-year-old victim, known only as Mrs. A, can seek punitive damages from Iorworth Hoare for an attempted rape in 1989. Hoare won £7 million (US$12.8 million) at the time — when he bought a winning lottery ticket in 2004 while spending a few hours outside prison under supervision. He received his money when he was released in 2005, after serving 16 years of a life sentence for attacking Mrs. A. He had six previous convictions for sexual assaults and rape. Mrs. A sought to sue Hoare when she learned about his winnings.
■ BELGIUM
No more milk, begs official
The EU’s top farm official is begging German farmers to stop mailing her milk. EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel has been sent some 10,000 liters of milk by farmers angry at an EU proposal to increase milk quotas that may cause prices to fall, her spokesman Michael Mann said on Tuesday. Most of the milk was sent in regular mail addressed to her and comes in plastic-covered cardboard Tetra-Pak packaging, he said. And a lot of it has gone off after a few days away from a fridge. Some of the parcels even burst open, he said. “We have to unfortunately throw it away,” Mann said.
■ ITALY
Police arrest 44 mobsters
Police in Naples say they have arrested 44 suspected mobsters in a crackdown on drug trafficking. Police said the sweep yesterday followed the capture earlier this year of a convicted boss in the Camorra crime syndicate. Investigators say the Camorra controls trafficking in drugs and arms in the Naples area, as well as extortion and prostitution rackets. Police said that the latest raids led to the confiscation of apartments, cars, motorcycles, farmland and companies that are worth a total of 300 million euros (US$480 million).
■ GERMANY
Police remove chatterbox
A desperate German woman finally called emergency services to rescue her after a friend visiting her at her apartment talked for 30 hours straight, authorities said on Tuesday. A police spokesman in the western city of Speyer confirmed reports about the case, in which the guest rambled on about personal problems and became increasingly intoxicated until the 48-year-old dialed the emergency hotline. “After an unbelievable 30 hours and failed attempts to encourage the guest to leave last Saturday, the woman did not know what else to do but to call an ambulance,” police said. When the paramedics refused to carry the guest out of the apartment, the woman called the police, who picked up the friend and drove her home.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Cops quiz murder suspect
Police were given extra time to question a man on Tuesday in a widening probe into the murder of two French students killed last week in a frenzied knife attack and then burned in a London apartment. The 33-year-old man turned himself in on Monday, but was taken to hospital to receive treatment for severe burns before questioning began. Detectives later said magistrates had granted them an extra 36 hours to quiz the suspect. Bio-engineering students Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, both 23, were bound, gagged and repeatedly stabbed in Bonomo’s south London apartment. Police called it the most frenzied, brutal and horrific murder they had investigated.
■ UNITED STATES
White House apologizes
An embarrassed White House apologized on Tuesday for an “unfortunate mistake” — the distribution of a less-than-flattering biography of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to the press corps at the G8 summit in Toyako, Japan. The biography described Berlusconi as one of the “most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for government corruption and vice.” It was just last month that Berlusconi welcomed Bush to Rome, calling him “a personal friend of mine and also a great friend of Italy.” In a written apology, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the biography used insulting language and did not represent the views of Bush nor the US government.
■ UNITED STATES
Investor Templeton dies
Global investor and philanthropist John Templeton has died at a hospital in the Bahamas. Spokesman Don Lehr said Templeton died on Tuesday from pneumonia. He was 95. Templeton created the John Templeton Foundation in 1987 to encourage scientific research. The foundation has an estimated endowment of US$1.5 billion and awards some US$70 million in annual grants. Templeton was a naturalized British citizen, who lived in Nassau. He was knighted in 1987 for his philanthropic accomplishments.
■ UNITED STATES
Man charged over shooting
A 22-year-old Vietnamese man has been charged with shooting at random motorists over three days in the Dallas suburbs, and prosecutors said on Tuesday they would treat the charges as hate crimes. Thai-An Huu Nguyen faces three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Nguyen, 22, was also charged with deadly conduct by discharging a firearm. Several people were injured in the shootings, which happened from June 29 to July 1 in Garland, Mesquite, Richardson and Plano. The majority of the shootings involved cars stopped at red lights or traveling on highways. Police said Nguyen told detectives the day after his arrest that he was targeting Asians and Hispanics.
■ UNITED STATES
Dad dies from heat
A man who police say left his elderly, infirm parents in a sweltering car while he went to work driving a bus route for three hours was charged with reckless endangerment on Tuesday. Theodore Pressman’s father died, but his mother made it out of the vehicle. At an appearance in New York’s Peekskill City Court, Theodore Pressman, 48, looking frail himself, was held on US$10,000 bail and ordered to stay away from his mother. Peekskill police Chief Eugene Tumolo said that after an autopsy, Joseph Pressman’s death was declared a homicide. More charges against Theodore Pressman could be added later, police said.
■ UNITED STATES
Call for end to gay ban
Four former US generals have joined a growing call to end a policy barring homosexuals from openly serving in the military, after a study showed it was out of step with the times and harming the armed forces. The retired officers from the US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps found in a year-long study that the 15-year-old policy, which allows gays to serve in the military only if they do not reveal their homosexuality, “is not working.” After reviewing material from congressional hearings and interviewing military personnel, the generals concluded the policy was not working in part because attitudes towards gays in the military have changed since 1993.
‘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
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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