■CAMBODIA
Officials prepare funeral
The government began preparations yesterday for the funeral of the country’s controversial national police chief, a close ally of Prime Minister Hun Sen who was killed in a helicopter crash. Police Commissioner-General Hok Lundy, 51, died on Sunday night when the helicopter he was traveling in crashed in Svay Rieng Province, apparently because of bad weather. Hok Lundy had a reputation for ruthlessness as well as loyalty to Hun Sen, whose son, Hun Manit, is married to the late police chief’s daughter, Hok Chendavy. Last year, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch urged the US government to cancel a visa issued to Hok Lundy to attend an FBI-sponsored conference on human trafficking, accusing him of having ordered an extrajudicial killing and involvement in drug smuggling and human trafficking.
■SOUTH KOREA
Ex-student ‘kills’ teacher
Police arrested a man for allegedly murdering a former schoolmaster who punished him for cheating 21 years ago, police said yesterday. They said the 37-year-old identified only as Kim repeatedly stabbed the 58-year-old teacher late on Saturday. They said Kim denied he had cheated during an exam in 1987 and was bitter about a severe beating that the teacher, surnamed Song, gave him at the time. Investigators said Kim had since January been stalking Song to demand that he apologize, but that the teacher tried to ignore him. He repeatedly telephoned, visited or e-mailed Song.
■PHILIPPINES
Troops clash with rebels
Troops clashed yesterday with Muslim separatist rebels who were allegedly planning to attack towns in a southern province, an army commander said. The firefight erupted in the town of Wao in Lanao del Sur Province, 810km south of Manila, after intelligence reports warned of a possible attack by up to 200 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels. Colonel Nicanor Dolojan, an army brigade commander, said government troops launched “clearing operations” against MILF rebels who were “threatening to attack military installations and municipalities of Wao and nearby Bumbaran.”
■INDONESIA
Boat capsizes, eight die
At least eight people including a two-year-old child died and three others remained missing after a passenger boat capsized, media reports said yesterday. The accident occurred on Sunday evening near Kupang, the capital of East Nusa Tenggara, and was caused by strong wind, the state-run Antara news agency reported. Marsudi Wahyuono, chief of the Kupang district police, quoted the captain as saying that the boat was carrying 16 people when it left for Kera Island, about 19km from Kupang beach. But a strong wind sent a big wave that hit the boat and capsized it. Wahyuono said five other people, including the crew of two, survived.
■SOUTH KOREA
North threatens action
Communist North Korea threatened yesterday to take “ultra-hardline” steps if Japan strengthened sanctions against it. “The DPRK [North Korea] will respond in a ultra-hardline manner to Japan’s pressure and strengthened sanctions,” the ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary, without giving details. Japan’s sanctions — imposed after the North tested an atom bomb in October 2006 for the first time — include bans on all imports from the impoverished state and all port calls by North Korean-registered ships.
■UNITED STATES
Saggy bottoms panned
Dallas Councilman Dwaine Caraway is on a mission: He wants those wearing low-hanging, baggy pants to pull them up. As part of his ongoing campaign against saggy, underwear-exposing pants, he held a summit on Saturday. More than 100 adults, children, students, ministers, law enforcement officers and representatives from local organizations attended the hours-long derriere affair. Local youth counselor Calvin Glover even brought a contingent of saggy bottom teens. The group piled into two elevators and made its way to the council chamber. Saggy britches, big belt buckles and untucked T-shirts were in abundance.
■HAITI
Rescuers losing hope
Rescuers vowed to plow on with their search for survivors at a collapsed school at least through early yesterday, despite shrinking hopes and the growing stench of dead bodies still trapped beneath the rubble. US, French and local firefighters used sonar, cameras and dogs to scour the wreckage of College La Promesse for signs of life three days after it collapsed during a school party, killing about 90 students and adults and severely injuring 150 more.
■GEORGIA
Militants cross border
About 70 militants from the breakaway province of South Ossetia illegally entered a local village, officials said on Sunday. The EU’s observer mission voiced concern about the situation, saying the move could exacerbate tensions in the area. South Ossetia’s separatist leader Eduard Kokoity said that part of the village was located in South Ossetia and its forces legitimately entered it, the Interfax news agency reported. Shota Utiashvili, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the armed militants began to enter Perevi, a village of about 1,000 people, on Saturday.
■RUSSIA
Rebels attack police, troops
Interior Ministry officials said a Russian police officer had been killed and two had been wounded in several attacks in restive southern provinces near Chechnya. The ministry’s branch in the Russian province of Dagestan said the police officer was shot and killed by two unidentified gunmen in the town of Khasavyurt on Saturday night and that the attackers fled. The federal Investigative Committee’s office in the province of Ingushetia also said on Sunday that a police officer was shot and wounded by a gunman in the city of Nazran on Saturday. It said that a separate attack on Saturday by the militants wounded an Interior Troops serviceman.
■GERMANY
Investigators to try Nazi
Investigators hope to put alleged Nazi war criminal Ivan John Demjanjuk on trial as officials of the central office for solving Nazi crimes yesterday handed over the results of their preliminary investigation to prosecutors. The head of the office, Kurt Schrimm, said he hoped prosecutors in Munich would seek extradition of 88-year-old Demjanjuk from the US, where he emigrated in the 1950s and worked in the car industry. Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was accused of having participated in the murder of at least 29,000 European Jews at the death camps in Sobibor and Treblinka, Poland, during World War II. US authorities extradited him to Israel in 1986 after his alleged role in the Holocaust became known in the 1970s. He was accused of crimes committed at the Treblinka death camp, where he got the nickname Ivan the Terrible for his alleged crimes.
‘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