■THAILAND
PM to reform slander law
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva yesterday agreed to consider reforming tough laws protecting the kingdom’s revered monarchy following the launch of an international campaign. Critics of the lese majeste law, which criminalizes any insult or defamation of the royal family, said it was being used for political ends amid a growing crackdown on alleged violators. More than 50 experts, including philosopher Noam Chomsky, have signed a campaign letter to be sent to the prime minister, but Abhisit pre-empted them yesterday by admitting to “problems” with the law’s enforcement.
■CHINA
Beijing to ‘protect’ Tibet
Authorities have pledged to spend 15 billion yuan (US$2.19 billion) over two decades to protect the environment in Tibet, which is at serious risk from global warming, the official China Daily reported yesterday. The cash would fund projects to preserve grasslands, woods and wetland, protect endangered animals, grow “forest shelter belts” to protect against gales and expand clean energy, the paper quoted the region’s governor, Qiangba Puncog (向巴平措), as saying. It was not clear if the “Ecological Protection Plan of Tibet” covered a series of hydropower projects planned for the region’s rivers, which are the source for many of Asia’s great waterways.
■INDONESIA
Tallest volcano erupts
The tallest volcano on Java erupted yesterday, spewing smoke and ash high into the sky and coating a nearby town in black dust, an official said. The 3,676m Mount Semeru burst into life shortly after midnight but officials said it posed no danger to people living in the area, 35km southeast of Lumajang. Winds had also helped to carry the harmful debris away from the most populated areas nearby, volcanologist Agus Budianto said.
■AUSTRALIA
Mid-air blast not suspicious
There is no evidence that explosive materials were involved in a mid-air blast that forced a Qantas airliner to make an emergency landing last year, air safety investigators said yesterday. An exploding oxygen bottle has already been blamed for blowing a gaping hole in the Boeing 747-400 carrying 365 passengers from Hong Kong to Australia in July, but the latest findings take the probe further. A preliminary Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in an interim report released in August that one of seven passenger oxygen cylinders failed and then exploded in the aircraft hold, rupturing the fuselage. The explosion punched through the cabin floor, and the malfunctioning cylinder fell back through the floor and out of the aircraft, it said.
■MALAYSIA
Diapers disguise cigarettes
Dates from Dubai. Of course. Diapers? Not so sure. Customs officials seized 45,000 cartons of cigarettes on Thursday that were hidden underneath diapers shipped from Dubai. Customs official S. Segaran said agents became suspicious of the shipment because diapers were rarely imported from Dubai. Typical items imported from Dubai included dates, he said. Why would “people import diapers from Dubai? Normally diapers won’t come from there,” he said. Segaran said on Friday they were investigating a man for allegedly smuggling D&J brand cigarettes, worth 1.5 million ringgit (US$403,000), to avoid customs duty. If convicted, he faces up to three years in jail.
■NETHERLANDS
Cannabis cafes closing
Two Dutch towns on Thursday said their eight cannabis “coffee shops” would be closed within the next six months to ward off the 25,000 marijuana-smoking tourists who flood their communities every week. The towns of Roosendaal and Bergen-op-Zoom, which are near the border with Belgium, said in a joint statement that the closures would take effect on Sept. 16. The move was being taken to “put an end to the nuisance and crime related to trafficking and the consumption of drugs” generated by the 25,000 tourists, a statement said. The mayors had announced last October their intention to withdraw the licenses of the coffee shops over security concerns.
■FRANCE
Brit in trouble over kiss
A British man who drove with a licence plate modified to read “kisses” in French was fined 150 euros (US$190) by a French court on Thursday. Graham Moore, 60, from Yorkshire in northern England, had risked up to five years in prison for driving with the plate, B18OUS, modified to read BISOUS, which had belonged to his son’s car. Moore said his now deceased son had modified the plate to amuse his French girlfriend, and that he taken to using it in France in his memory.
■RUSSIA
Woman ‘killed’ lookalike
A woman has been arrested on charges of murdering a lookalike she met on the Internet and selling the victim’s apartment in a grisly moneymaking scheme, Channel One TV reported on Thursday. The woman’s killer made one crucial mistake, the report said: leaving her dismembered body on the balcony. Investigators say the 46-year-old suspect struck up an Internet friendship with her victim, who looked like her and was roughly the same age, by commiserating about being abandoned by men, Channel One reported. They believe she came to the victim’s apartment in a Moscow suburb, poisoned her and used her identification documents to sell the apartment. Police and prosecutors could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Mom gets 7.5 years in jail
A mother whose 22-month-old daughter died in a house fire after being left at home alone was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in jail. The toddler, Jodie Ann Brown, died from smoke inhalation after an electrical fire broke out at her Coventry home last July. Her mother, Michelle Brown, 37, was found guilty of “causing or allowing” her death and perverting the course of justice at Coventry Crown Court on Thursday, the Press Association reported. During a two-week trial it emerged that mother-of-five Brown left her young daughter unsupervised in an upstairs bedroom while she attended a court hearing relating to one of her other children.
■FRANCE
Jewel ‘thieves’ in probe
French magistrates have placed under investigation a woman and her son suspected of stealing hundreds of thousands of euros in jewelry robberies across Europe, a judicial source said on Thursday. Police started a massive hunt for the couple after a woman and a man posing as wealthy Middle Eastern buyers stole a 5.5-carat diamond ring worth 635,000 euros (US$799,100) at Cartier in Paris in November. The pair were arrested in northern France last Friday and have admitted to some crimes, the source said. Being placed under investigation is a formal step ahead of possible charges.
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■UNITED STATES
Comedian to go under knife
Actor Robin Williams will undergo heart surgery for an aortic valve replacement, forcing him to cut short his stand-up comedy tour, his representative said on Thursday. Williams, 57, was in the middle of his 80-city, one-man Weapons of Self-Destruction tour in Florida this week when he complained of shortness of breath. His representative did not disclose where or when the surgery would occur.
■UNITED STATES
Playwright dies aged 92
Horton Foote, whose plays and scripts about the longing and struggles of small-town life won him two Academy Awards, an Emmy and a Pulitzer Prize, has died at the age of 92. Foote, whose best-known works included the Oscar-winning scripts for To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies, died on Wednesday in Hartford, Connecticut, after a brief illness, his daughter, actress Hallie Foote, told the New York Times. Foote was nominated for an Oscar for the 1985 film The Trip to Bountiful, a version of one of his plays that won an Oscar for Geraldine Page as a woman trying to reconnect with her small-town Texas roots. Other popular movies he wrote included Steve McQueen’s Baby, the Rain Must Fall, based on the Foote play The Travelling Lady, and The Chase, which starred Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford.
■MEXICO
Ancient sea turtle unveiled
Paleontologists on Thursday unveiled the oldest fossil remains of a sea turtle that lived 72 million years ago in northern Mexico, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said. “It is the oldest sea turtle of its kind and it belongs to the chelonia family. The oldest specimen of this species up to now was 65 million years old and was found in New Jersey, United States,” the INAH said in a statement. The fossils of seven sea turtles were found at different sites in Coahuila, the state that Mexican scientists call “the paradise of paleontology.”
■UNITED STATES
Soldier denies Iraq theft
An Army captain accused of stealing nearly US$700,000 from the US government while serving in Iraq pleaded not guilty on Thursday to charges including theft of government property and money laundering. Captain Michael Dung Nguyen, 28, is accused of stealing more than US$690,000 entrusted to him as the battalion civil affairs officer in Muqdadiyah, Iraq, between April 2007 and Feb. 24. A federal grand jury indictment alleges Nguyen used some of the money to buy two new vehicles, along with computers, electronics and furniture.
■MEXICO
Fat man ready to roll
The world’s heaviest man still can’t walk, but he will soon be able to roll. Manuel Uribe said on Thursday he is having a 1989 Chevrolet Astrovan outfitted to support his record-breaking weight, giving him mobility after more than six years of being confined to his bed. Uribe earned the Guinness World Record as the world’s heaviest man in 2006, when he tipped the scales at 560kg. He claims to have since shed more than 220kg after making a public call for help. The minivan is being converted into an open-air, flatbed pickup of sorts. Manuel says he will put a bed on the back of the van to drive around town, with his new wife at the wheel. When at home, he will hang out in a remodeled garage that will include a forklift to help raise his regular bed up to the level of his car bed, allowing him to switch locations from time to time.
‘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