■PAKISTAN
Bomb destroys press club
A bomb destroyed a press club building yesterday in a restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan, but caused no casualties, an official said. The two-story building was reduced to rubble by the explosives, planted by unidentified people in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan tribal district, deputy administrator for the region Ghafoor Shah said. It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack.
■AUSTRALIA
Remains found in crocodile
A boy who vanished from an Australian river edge was attacked and eaten by a crocodile, police said. Remains of five-year-old Jeremy Doble were found in the stomach of a 4.3m male crocodile trapped in the flooded Daintree River near where the boy had vanished on Feb. 8, a police statement said on Tuesday. Jeremy had been playing with his seven-year-old brother Ryan behind their family property in a flooded mangrove swamp when he disappeared. The killer crocodile, whose stomach contents were examined by a non-lethal surgical procedure, will be sent to a crocodile farm or zoo, the Queensland state government said yesterday. The victim’s parents, who run a crocodile-spotting tourism business, have declined media interviews.
■MALAYSIA
Nude photos cause trouble
A prominent opposition legislator resigned on Tuesday after photographs of her sleeping naked were circulated to the public by cellphone, an embarrassing disclosure that she slammed as a plot to discredit her party. The People’s Justice Party, however, told 37-year-old Elizabeth Wong to go on extended leave, and said it would decide later whether to accept her resignation from the Selangor state assembly. In an emotional news conference, Wong did not deny that the pictures in question were of her. “I have done nothing wrong. I wish to state that I am not ashamed of my sexuality as a woman and as a single person. I have broken no law,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. News reports say the photos were believed to have been taken by her ex-boyfriend without her knowledge in her home last year.
■HONG KONG
Couple jailed over scam
A homosexual couple have been jailed over a wedding scam set up to allow a Malaysian man to live permanently in Hong Kong, the territory’s immigration department said. Malaysian Derek Chong, 29, and Hong Kong resident Andrew Lam, 51, organized for Chong to marry a Hong Kong woman so he could settle in the territory, the department said. Lam and Chong were on Tuesday both jailed for eight months on a joint conspiracy charge.
■JAPAN
‘Demon’ killer gets life
A Tokyo court yesterday handed a life sentence to a man who abducted and killed a young woman before chopping up her body and flushing her remains down the toilet, a court official said. Takanori Hoshijima — a 34-year-old computer programmer labeled a “demon with a human face” by the victim’s relatives — was found guilty of murder, a Tokyo District Court spokeswoman said. Hoshijima kidnapped his neighbor Rurika Tojo, 23, at knife-point from her Tokyo apartment last year and took her to his own apartment on the same floor, planning to turn her into his “sex slave,” the court heard. Fearing police would catch him, Hoshijima stabbed the woman, chopped up her body and flushed body parts down the toilet or put them in garbage bags which he threw away on his way to work.
■SPAIN
Couple incites terror attacks
A soldier and his Russian girlfriend were arrested on Tuesday for posting videos on the Internet calling for Islamist attacks in Spain, the National Police said. Christian Peso Ruiz and Maria Choubina, both 24, were arrested in the city of Granada in Andalusia over the videos, which called for the recovery of territories — known as Al Andalus — that were under Muslim rule for hundreds of years, the police said in a news release. “They wanted to use the Internet to distribute messages to encourage people in the Muslim world to carry out terrorist attacks in Spain, mixing nostalgic calls for the liberation of Al Andalus with praise of terrorists,” police said. The pair posted up to 11 videos, which received more than 2,000 hits.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Jerry Springer in ‘Chicago’
US talk show host Jerry Springer said he would perform in the musical Chicago at London’s West End. He will play the slick lawyer Billy Flynn in the show, which is about glamorous women who murder their lovers for fame. The 65-year-old said on Tuesday he will perform the role at the Cambridge Theater in London’s West End theater district for six weeks starting in June. He said he would take singing lessons for the role. Springer hosts The Jerry Springer Show, which encourages people to reveal intimate secrets on air. A musical about his program, Jerry Springer: The Opera opened in London in 2003 and turned into a controversial hit — attracting wide audiences and criticism from religious groups that said it parodied Christian beliefs.
■ITALY
Crisis in the opposition
The center-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) was plunged into crisis on Tuesday with the resignation of its leader Walter Veltroni after a humiliating defeat in a regional by-election. The PD has long been beset by infighting and the 53-year-old Veltroni’s leadership has come under increasing fire ahead of EU elections in early June. In elections for the regional presidency of Sardinia, the incumbent backed by the center left, Renato Soru, won just under 43 percent of the vote against nearly 52 percent for his right-wing challenger Ugo Cappellacci. Cappellacci, 48, a political novice, enjoyed staunch support from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who traveled five times to the island of 1.6 million people to stump for him during the campaign. The election was seen as a test for the prime minister as he has begun slipping in the polls amid worsening economic news.
■ITALY
British lawyer convicted
A British lawyer accused of taking US$600,000 in exchange for false testimony designed to help Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was convicted of corruption on Tuesday and sentenced to four years in prison. The panel of three judges did not immediately issue an explanation of their ruling so it was not clear if they completely endorsed allegations by prosecutors. The prosecution had said Berlusconi had ordered payment to David Mills in 1997 in exchange for his testimony at two hearings in other corruption cases in the 1990s. Mills was accused of failing to tell a court in one of the cases that two offshore companies involved in buying US film rights had links to Berlusconi. Mills was also accused of failing to mention in another case a 1995 phone call with Berlusconi in which the two discussed alleged illicit payments from Berlusconi to the late Socialist prime minister Bettino Craxi.
■URUGUAY
Amnesty unconstitutional
The government deems unconstitutional a 1986 amnesty law for crimes committed under the 1973 to 1985 military dictatorship, Vice President Rodolfo Nin Novoa said on Tuesday. The Ley de Caducidad, which was approved by referendum in 1989, “is in flagrant violation of Article 8 of the Constitution stating that all citizens are equal before the law, and we agree with every argument deeming it unconstitutional,” Nin Novoa said. The bulk of military leaders suspected of human right abuses during their “dirty war” against leftist insurgents have gone unpunished and many Uruguayans have sought to revoke the amnesty law to heal the country’s lingering wounds.
■UNITED STATES
Judge faces impeachment
A Democratic lawmaker in Texas has introduced a bill to impeach a judge who sent a condemned man to his death rather than receive his last-minute appeal after office hours. The bill called for a special committee to consider impeaching Appeals Court Judge Sharon Keller “for gross neglect of duty and conducting her official duties with willful disregard for human life.” The chain of events began Sept. 25, 2007, when the US Supreme Court decided to take up the question of the legality of lethal injections. That decision launched lawyers for Michael Richard, who was supposed to be executed at 6pm by lethal injection, on a race against the clock to draw up an appeal and submit it before the court of criminal appeals closed at 5pm. With 10 minutes to go before closing time, the lawyers called the court to ask for another 20 minutes but were refused. Richard was the last man executed before the start of a seven-month moratorium.
■UNITED STATES
Thong thief sentenced
One of two Colorado men who used women’s thong underwear to cover their faces while they robbed a convenience store has been sentenced to 12 years in prison. Twenty-year-old Joaquin Rico was sentenced on Tuesday. He and 25-year-old Joseph Richard Espinoza pleaded guilty to the May 15 robbery. Prosecutors say the pair threw a large rock through the store’s window at 5am, soon after the clerk opened the store. One man wore a green thong; the other wore blue. The thieves stole about US$100 and 37 packs of cigarettes.
■UNITED STATES
‘Goth’ groomer to face trial
A Pennsylvania dog groomer has been ordered to stand trial on animal cruelty charges for selling “gothic kittens” with ear, neck and tail piercings. Holly Crawford’s home outside Wilkes-Barre was raided on Dec. 17 after the county Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals got a tip, the Citizens’ Voice newspaper reported. A prosecutor says Crawford inflicted pain on the cats, which were listed for sale for hundreds of dollars on the Internet.
■GREECE
Citibank bombing foiled
Police said they have foiled a car bomb attack outside the offices of Citibank in an Athens suburb. Police spokesman Panagiotis Stathis said the bomb squad destroyed the powerful time bomb in Kifissia before dawn yesterday. Stathis said the device consisted of five large propane gas canisters that had been emptied and then filled with explosives. A guard called police after seeing the car being abandoned there. The attempted bombing came hours after gunmen fired shots and threw a suspected bomb outside a private television station on Tuesday night.
‘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