■CHINA
Murder ‘victim’ reappears
Police in central China are re-examining the case of a man convicted of murdering his neighbor 11 years ago after the “victim” suddenly reappeared in good health, state media reported yesterday. Zhao Zuohai was convicted and sentenced to death by a court in Henan Province on charges of killing his neighbor Zhao Zhenxiang in 1999, the Beijing News said. His sentence was commuted to life in prison and later reduced to 20 years. Zhao Zuohai confessed to the killing after a headless body was found in a well in Zhecheng County, where he lived. However, his “victim” suddenly returned to the area this week after an 11-year absence, the report said. It said Zhao Zhenxiang apparently fled the county in 1999 and relocated without telling anyone. Police were now trying to ascertain the identity of the headless corpse. The report said it remained unclear why Zhao Zuohai had pleaded guilty to the murder but added that there were suspicions police had tortured a confession out of him.
■CHINA
Extreme weather kills 39
Gales and hailstorms killed at least 39 people, injured hundreds and destroyed hundreds of homes in southwest and central China on Thursday, state media said. The hailstorms and ferocious winds hit Dianjiang and Liangping Counties near the city of Chongqing, killing 29 residents and knocking down 980 residential buildings, Xinhua news agency reported. In Hunan Province, next to Chongqing, four people died after the gales and driving rain struck Xinhua County from late Wednesday night, Xinhua said. In Guizhou Province, the rains triggered landslides and killed six people. Infrastructure and crops were also battered, with the cost of the storm expected to run over 120 million yuan (US$17.6 million) in Dianjiang alone, Xinhua said.
■AUSTRALIA
Men dig up wrong yard
Two workmen who excavated the wrong front yard in the city of Brisbane fled after realizing their error, the home owner said on Thursday. The men had used a backhoe to dig up turf, top soil centimeters deep, concrete garden edges and 10 palm trees on Wednesday morning, causing A$20,000 (US$18,000) damage, home owner Peter Collard said. Collard said his real estate agent found the pair at work and was told they had instructions to clear every tree. Collard suspected they were digging a swimming pool and had the wrong address. “The first I heard of it was when my agent rang me and said: ‘There’s someone digging your yard up. You’d better rush home,”’ Collard told Nine Network television. “I rushed home to find this huge mess and about A$20,000 worth of damage,” he said. “These guys obviously knew there was something up and took off,” he added.
■PAKISTAN
Gunmen kill four policemen
Gunmen attacked a police checkpoint in the northwest yesterday, killing four policemen before speeding away in a getaway vehicle, police said. The attackers sprayed bullets at policemen sheltering from rain inside a checkpost building in Ghazi Kot town in Mansehra District. “Four policemen were killed on the spot. They were taking shelter inside the checkpost when rain started. One injured is still unconscious,” Zulfiqar Jadoon, a police official said. “This is a clear act of terrorism,” Jadoon said. The gunmen arrived in a vehicle and fled after the attack, he said. An intelligence official confirmed the incident and blamed “miscreants”, a term widely used by officials in reference to militant networks.
■FRANCE
Police give ‘aperitif’ warning
Plans hatched on the Internet to hold the country’s biggest impromptu drinks party in Paris later this month drew a formal warning on Thursday from police who said the event could prove dangerous. More than 13,000 people have already confirmed online that they will be turning up under the Eiffel Tower on May 23 for the “giant drinks party,” or aperitif in French, and organizers hope to draw in more than 50,000. Propelled by Facebook, a series of such gatherings have been gaining momentum over recent months, with thousands of people turning up for drinks in cities like Rennes, Brest and Clermont-Ferrand. “We are aware of the festive and friendly motivation of the participants, but there are serious risks associated with crowd management involving several thousand people,” the Paris police said in a statement. “Such a gathering cannot be organized without first examining and implementing adequate measures to protect the participants as well as public property.” Police said that in a “giant aperitif” in the city of Nantes in November, 38 people were hospitalized, about 50 were found unconscious from drinking and several fell into the Loire river and had to be rescued.
■FRANCE
Cops nab vine ‘blackmailer’
Police have arrested a man who allegedly sent anonymous letters to one of the world’s most famous wine estates threatening to “poison” its vines unless it paid him 1 million euros (US$1.27 million). The man, whose name has not been made public, was caught in Burgundy while allegedly trying to make off with a package of fake banknotes that had been left as a trap by the managers of the Domaine de la Romanee Conti estate. Aubert de Villaine, co-director of the vineyard, said the estate received the first of several letters in January and immediately contacted police.
■TURKEY
Train crash leaves 32 hurt
A train car derailed on Thursday and crashed into another train traveling in the opposite direction in northwest Turkey, leaving 32 people injured, an official said. One of the victims is in serious condition after the accident in Kocaeli province, 100km east of Istanbul, Kocaeli Governor Gokhan Ozer told state television. Medical workers and survivors carried the injured on stretchers to ambulances, the TV footage showed. Most of the injured were taken to a nearby hospital, Ozer said.
■ICELAND
Police arrest bankers
The former chief executive and a senior director of the collapsed Icelandic bank Kaupthing were arrested on Thursday over allegations of fraud, local media reported. Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson, the ex-chief executive of the bank, was detained early on Thursday, reports said. Magnus Gudmundsson, the executive director of the bank’s Luxembourg branch, was held later, they said. The prosecutor’s office confirmed the arrest of one person without giving any names.
■ROMANIA
Designer aims high
A designer has come out with a new pair of sandals that increase a woman’s height by 31cm. The new shoes are being compared to skyscrapers because of their towering heels but the price may also have something to do with it. In a nation, where the average salary is 450 euros (US$575) a month, the hand-crafted sandals are selling for up to 1,200 euros. “Heels have an advantage because [many women] don’t have long legs,” Mihai Albu, said in an interview on Wednesday.
■UNITED STATES
Ex-pro charged with rape
NFL Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor was charged on Thursday with rape in Suffern, New York, for having sex with a 16-year-old runaway forced into prostitution by a man who had beaten her up, police said. Taylor, a 51-year-old former New York Giants star who has faced drug and tax evasion charges in the past, paid the girl US$300 for sex in a Holiday Inn, where he was arrested early on Thursday, said Christopher St Lawrence, supervisor of the town of Ramapo. The man who had beaten the girl drove her to Taylor’s suburban hotel room while she texted her uncle for help, police said. Ramapo Chief of Police Peter Brower said Taylor was cooperative when police woke him up at about 4am. Taylor was arraigned on Thursday on charges of third-degree rape and patronizing a prostitute.
■CANADA
Nine arrested in turf war
Montreal police arrested nine people on Thursday, including a minor, said to be responsible for a wave of Italian cafe firebombings in the city several months ago. Five of the accused are scheduled to appear in court to be arraigned on charges of arson, mischief, armed robbery, conspiracy and weapons possession, police said in a statement. Eighteen cafes in northeastern Montreal were set ablaze by the arsonists between Sept. 22 last year and Jan. 24. Crime experts said the firebombings were part of a war being waged for control of territories claimed by the beleaguered Montreal Mafia. Crime expert Antonio Nicaso told reporters last month that Montreal’s Sicilian Mafia is facing new competition for criminal spoils from a Calabrese clan, street gangs and even Haitian groups.
■UNITED STATES
Protesters arrested
Los Angeles police have arrested more than a dozen protesters who chained themselves together on a downtown street to protest Arizona’s new immigration law. Protest spokesman Nelson Motto said 14 activists locked themselves in a circle on Thursday afternoon in front of a federal immigration detention center, blocking traffic for about four hours. Dozens of helmeted officers surrounded the demonstrators, before declaring an unlawful assembly and making arrests.
■UNITED STATES
Bottling not a hate crime
A man who smashed a beer bottle over the head of an Ecuadorean immigrant was on Thursday convicted in New York of manslaughter, but a jury decided he did not commit a hate crime. Hakim Scott faces 25 years in prison on the manslaughter charge when he is sentenced on June 9. The state Supreme Court jury in Brooklyn acquitted him of murder and hate crime counts. A second jury was deliberating charges for his co-defendant, Keith Phoenix. Scott faced steeper jail time had he been convicted of hate crimes in the death of Jose Sucuzhanay in December 2008.
■UNITED STATES
Man charged in court
A Guatemalan-born woman told police her boyfriend tortured and repeatedly raped her after paying for her move to Connecticut. Twenty-four-year-old Edy Augusto Marroquin was charged with first-degree sexual assault on Wednesday as he appeared in court in a separate domestic violence case involving the woman. Police said the woman told authorities she was raped and tortured during a one-year period. Authorities say in one incident, the woman said Marroquin hit her with a machete and threatened to “cut off her head and feed it to the dogs.”
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was