■SOUTH KOREA
Roh’s jail term reduced
An appeals court yesterday reduced the jail sentence of the brother of the late president Roh Moo-hyun, saying he had been punished excessively because of the relationship. The Seoul High Court had sentenced Roh Gun-pyeong, elder brother of the former president who committed suicide in May, to two-and-a-half years in prison for taking a bribe. The sentence was reduced from a four-year term passed by a lower court on May 14, just nine days before Roh Moo-hyun killed himself. The fine was reduced to 300 million won (US$250,000) from the lower court’s 570 million won. Roh Gun-pyeong was charged with taking 2.3 billion won in bribes in return for using his influence in a business deal, which involved the state-run National Agricultural Cooperative Federation taking over an ailing brokerage in 2006.
■INDONESIA
Hundreds killed in exodus
More than 300 people have been killed in road accidents during an exodus to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, a police spokesman said yesterday. “The latest number of road accidents nationwide is 893, in which 312 people were killed,” national police spokesman I Ketut Untung Yoga Ana said, using data collected since Sept. 13. “Most of those killed were riding motorcycles,” he said. More than 27 million people left major cities and towns across the archipelago to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. Yoga Ana said that the number of people killed was expected to increase as millions of people returned to big cities this week after the holidays.
■AUSTRALIA
‘Nude’ cops suspended
Five elite policemen accused of drunkenly running naked round an unmarked van at a series of city traffic lights were suspended yesterday pending an investigation, officials said. The men, members of Queensland’s explosives and hostage negotiation squad, will be probed by an ethical standards committee over the incident in Brisbane during a stag party on Sunday afternoon. “The investigation relates to officers allegedly running naked around a police vehicle whilst stopped at several sets of traffic lights in Brisbane,” police said. The men, using an unmarked police van to travel from a stag party event, stopped at least four times at traffic lights to run naked around the bus in a prank known as “Chinese fire drill.” At least one of the officers was on duty. The sergeant, acting sergeant and three senior constables involved have been removed from operational duties and will “probably” be disciplined, Commissioner Bob Atkinson said. Criminal charges of wilful exposure, public nuisance and unlawful use of a motor vehicle were also possible, he said.
■INDIA
Workers kill boss: report
Police have arrested 12 workers who are suspected of killing their boss during a labor dispute at a struggling auto parts firm in southern India, the Times of India reported yesterday. Roy George, a human resources manager, was assaulted on Monday while trying to talk with employees who had been dismissed for lack of discipline in Coimbatore, a textile and engineering hub in Tamil Nadu state, the report said. George, who suffered multiple head injuries after being hit with iron bars and wooden sticks, died in hospital on Tuesday.
■SOUTH AFRICA
Murder down, rape up
Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said the country’s murder rate has declined but that more rapes and house robberies were reported. The government has been desperate to show crime is dropping ahead of next year’s World Cup. Mthethwa said progress has been made to bring the crime rate down but that more needs to be done. Statistics released on Tuesday show that murders decreased by 3.4 percent. But 18,000 people are still being killed each year — about 50 per day. There was a 10.1 percent increase in sexual offenses and house robberies increased by 27.33 percent from February last year to March this year.
■IRAN
Mannequins must cover up
Police warned shopkeepers on Tuesday not to use mannequins without headscarves or which exposed body curves, official news agency IRNA reported. “Using unusual mannequins exposing the body curves and with the heads without hijab [veil] are prohibited to be used in the shops,” the moral security police in charge of Islamic dress codes said in a statement carried by IRNA. Police have stepped up a crackdown on both women and men, boutiques and small firms which fail to enforce strict religious dress codes since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to office in 2005. “Both showing necktie and bowtie behind the windows ... and [the] selling [of] women’s underwear by men are prohibited,” the police statement said.
■UNITED STATES
Qaddafi blocked from tent
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi tried to set up a tent in the New York suburb of Bedford, but was blocked by city officials, ABC News reported on Tuesday. Qaddafi, who is famous for staying in his large Bedouin tent during foreign visits, had been erecting the tent on an estate owned by billionaire Donald Trump, the report said. But city officials said it violated town regulations. Trump’s company said the property was leased to Middle Eastern partners that “may or may not have a relationship to Mr Qaddafi” and it was looking into the issue. Qaddafi’s people had already been barred from erecting the tent in New York’s Central Park and on land in a New Jersey suburb owned by the Libyan embassy. This week’s visit is Qaddafi’s first to the US since taking power in 1969.
■UNITED STATES
Beatles set sales records
Nearly 40 years after breaking up, The Beatles are still breaking records for album sales. EMI Group says consumers in North America, Japan and the UK bought more than 2.25 million copies of the Fab Four’s re-mastered albums in the first five days after their release on Sept. 9. Most of the records were broken for most simultaneous titles in the top-selling charts by a single artist. On Billboard magazine’s pop catalog chart, for example, the band had 16 titles in the top 50, including all 14 re-mastered CDs and two box sets. The Beatles’ original UK studio albums were remastered and released to coincide with the sale of The Beatles: Rock Band videogame.
■SWEDEN
Helicopter used in heist
A group of robbers used a helicopter to escape after a spectacular morning heist of a cash depot in Stockholm yesterday, landing on the rooftop and smashing their way through the building, police said. Police said it wasn’t immediately clear whether the thieves managed to steal any money. No suspects have been arrested, but police found a helicopter abandoned in the northern part of the capital.
■UNITED STATES
Texas executes 18th person
A man convicted of murdering three people in a drug deal gone wrong became the 18th person to be executed in Texas this year, prison officials said. Christopher Coleman, 37, was pronounced dead at 6:22pm on Tuesday evening after being administered a lethal injection. He was convicted in 1995 of having shot and killed three people — two men and a sleeping child — during a drug deal. A woman, the mother of the child, was injured in the attack, but survived to identify Coleman as the shooter. Lawyers for Coleman said the woman lied in her testimony. They raised questions about her involvement in the drug deal and her relationship with one of the men killed in the shooting.
■UNITED STATES
Police caught playing Wii
It’s game over for some police officers who played video games while raiding a convicted drug dealer’s home in central Florida. Surveillance video caught the officers playing a Nintendo Wii bowling game in the Tampa, Florida, home, with one furiously jumping up and down in celebration. Some of the officers may be disciplined. Officers with the anti-drug task force had just stormed into the home of the drug dealer, who was already in custody. One sheriff’s detective can be seen taking breaks from cataloging evidence to bowl frames. The officers did not know a video camera had been set up in the house.
■UNITED STATES
Imam tip-off sparks concern
The role that a New York City imam and one of his police contacts played in a terrorism probe that touched off a national threat warning has raised questions about investigators’ handling of the case. Authorities say Queens imam Ahmad Afzali tipped off terror suspect Najibullah Zazi on Sept. 11 that New York Police Department detectives were asking questions about him. The detectives considered the imam a reliable ally. That’s fueled questions about whether police ruined the surveillance of Zazi by reaching out to the former informant without the FBI’s knowledge. Zazi, his father and Afzali were arrested over the weekend on charges that they lied to the FBI.
■UNITED STATES
Workers fired over death
Sixteen corrections employees in Phoenix, Arizona, have been fired, suspended or otherwise disciplined for their roles in the death of an inmate. Authorities say 48-year-old Marcia Powell collapsed in heat of more than 40ºC after spending four hours in an outdoor holding cell on May 20, and died of a heat-related illness. Powell had first and second-degree burns on her face and body and a core body temperature of 42ºC. She was serving a 27-month sentence for prostitution.
■MEXICO
Kahlo works may be fake
Federal prosecutors said on Tuesday they are investigating a claim that more than 1,000 items attributed to artist Frida Kahlo were forged. The Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Trust filed a complaint saying signed paintings, notes and drawings featured in two recent art history books are fake, the Attorney General’s Office said. “We must stop the commercialization of false works,” said Hilda Trujillo, director of the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums. The works in question come from a private collection and appear in two books, Finding Frida Kahlo and The Labyrinth of Frida Kahlo: Death, Pain and Ambivalence.
‘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