CHINA
Lawyer barred from leaving
Renowned human rights lawyer Mo Shaoping (莫少平) said Beijing airport police blocked him yesterday from boarding a flight to attend an international legal conference in London. Mo said officers gave only vague reasons for their actions, although it comes amid a new wave of repression against independent activists sparked by the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to dissident writer Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波). Mo, whose firm represents Liu, said he was stopped along with Hong Kong University law professor He Weifang (賀衛方) as they were attempting to board a flight to London. “We were taken to an office by two police and were told that we had been restricted from going abroad because it might harm state security,” Mo said. He had planned to make a presentation on the independence of lawyers at a International Bar Association conference. “The trip was fixed a few months ago and has nothing to do with the incident of the Nobel Peace Prize,” Mo said.
SINGAPORE
Writer’s sentence deferred
The High Court yesterday deferred the sentencing of British writer Alan Shadrake, who has been found guilty of contempt of court for criticizing the city-state’s judiciary. High Court Judge Quentin Loh told a hearing that he needed one week to decide how he would sentence Shadrake, 76, whose book on the country’s use of the death penalty was deemed to have scandalized the court. Shadrake’s lawyers asked the court for a lenient sentence of censure, while prosecutors asked for a 12-week jail term. In a written judgment last week, Loh said Shadrake had used a “selective background of truths and half-truths, and sometimes outright falsehoods” in his book.
THAILAND
Flooding kills 181 people
Severe flooding has left 181 people dead over the past month, the authorities said yesterday. The government estimates that 7.8 million people have been affected, mainly in the northeast and south, with homes submerged and farmland damaged in what Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has described as “a huge natural calamity.” Fifty-one of Thailand’s 76 provinces have been hit, but the waters have now subsided in many areas, officials said.
SOUTH KOREA
Japan to return documents
Japan has agreed to return more than 1,200 Korean royal documents and other books seized during Tokyo’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, the foreign ministry said. The move came three months after Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan apologized to South Korea for the suffering caused by Tokyo’s 1910 to 1945 colonial rule. Kan also said in August that Tokyo would return some Korean cultural artifacts, including historical documents that it acquired while ruling the peninsula. Seoul and Tokyo had reached the deal over Joseon Dynasty royal documents and other books and agreed to sign a formal treaty in the near future, the ministry said in a statement on Monday night. The Joseon Dynasty ruled Korea from 1392 to 1910.
SOUTH KOREA
Goldfish given security role
Six goldfish will put their lives on the line to safeguard world leaders at this week’s G20 summit in Seoul. The Convention and Exhibition Center, which is hosting the event, will use the fish to check the purity of the water supply to restrooms, an official said yesterday. An official said that they were just part of the inspection process.
NIGER
Tandja’s release ordered
The court of justice of the West African regional body ECOWAS ordered the country’s military rulers on Monday to release Mamadou Tandja, a former president the soldiers ousted in a coup earlier this year. “Apparently [Tandja’s] human rights have been violated. This court hereby rules that he should be released,” ECOWAS Justice Awa Nana Daboya said at a hearing in Abuja, Nigeria. The court gave no further details. A junta spokesman in the capital said he could not comment because authorities had yet to be formally notified of the ruling. Tandja has been held under house arrest since he was toppled in February by soldiers who have since promised to hold elections and return power to civilians in the uranium-exporting nation by April next year.
ALBANIA
Bus falls off 90m cliff
A bus traveling from the capital to Greece fell off a 90m cliff during a rainstorm on Monday, killing nine people and injuring 41, authorities said. Fire brigade spokesman Shkelqim Pashaj quoted survivors as saying the driver had been talking on his mobile phone for much of the journey and other passengers told local media he had been driving erratically. The bus crashed in Ziaj village, 150km south of Tirana, at about 8pm after the Greek bus driver lost control of the vehicle, according to a police statement.
CANADA
Man seeks halt to extradition
A Lebanese-Canadian accused of bombing a Paris synagogue in 1980, killing four people and injuring dozens, asked a court on Monday to halt extradition proceedings against him. Speaking through his lawyer at the start of his hearing, Hassan Diab said the evidence presented against him by French authorities relied on “secret, un-sourced intelligence.” He likened his situation to Maher Arar who, in 2002, was transferred by US officials to Syria, where he was imprisoned and allegedly tortured based on false intelligence. The 56-year-old former professor was arrested in November 2008 at his home in an Ottawa suburb at the request of French authorities who want him extradited to face charges of murder, attempted murder and willful destruction of property.
SOUTH AFRICA
Man left behind by pirates
The EU anti-piracy task force said on Monday it had rescued a yachtsman after he was left behind by Somali pirates, although two other crewmembers were taken onshore as hostages. High Commissioner to Kenya Ndumiso Ntshinga told reporters he had been in contact with the rescued yachtsman on Monday and confirmed the two captives, a man and a woman. “What we know is the yacht had three crew. The three were South Africans. They took two and the captain of the yacht was rescued by the EU patrol ship,” Ntshinga said.
GERMANY
Man cracks over lost violin
A musician needed medical treatment after forgetting his violin worth about 1 million euros (US$1.4 million) on a train, police said on Monday. The 55-year-old left the instrument, made in Italy in 1748, on a regional train in Munich on Friday evening after arriving back at the southern city’s airport from a trip to Asia. “He got off the train but he forgot to take the violin with him. Police launched a search and found it still on the train, still on the seat where he left it,” a spokesman told reporters. “He needed treatment from a doctor but it was nothing dramatic. He was just a bit nervous because he thought he had lost it.”
MEXICO
Mayor-elect killed: report
A mayor-elect from the state of Veracruz was kidnapped and killed along with two companions on Monday, local media reported. The reports did not link the killings to the violence sweeping the country as the government fights powerful drug cartels. Gregorio Barradas Miravete, the mayor-elect from the municipality of Juan Rodriguez Clara, was a member of President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party. The three men were forced into a Hummer truck in the afternoon and taken to the neighboring state of Oaxaca, local prosecutors said, according to several online newspapers. “The truck was found with the three bodies inside,” authorities said.
CHILE
Two killed in illegal mine
Officials said that a mine accident had killed two workers in the same northern region where 33 miners were rescued last month after 69 days underground. Police said the two victims at Los Reyes mine were 24 and 40 years old, and Monday was their first day on the job. A third worker suffered an eye injury. Preliminary reports suggest the accident may have been caused by a premature dynamite blast. The National Geology and Mining Service said the mine was illegal and unregistered. “We did not know it existed,” agency official Mariano Garrido said.
UNITED STATES
Gator sets Florida record
A man who trapped and killed an alligator so big it pulled his boat around a lake has snared what authorities say is Florida’s longest gator on record, exceeding 4.3m. Wildlife officials said the gator caught by Robert Ammerman, a nurse who traps gators as a hobby, weighed 297kg. It was caught Nov. 1, the last day of Florida’s alligator harvest, in Lake Washington. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said the previous record was slightly shorter and was trapped in 1997. The state’s heaviest gator on record was taken in 1989, weighing 473kg. Ammerman said the gator thrashed and pulled his boat for about 45 minutes after being harpooned and took two hours to tow to dock.
UNITED STATES
Killer sentenced to die
A man was condemned to death on Monday for a night of terror inside a suburban home where a woman was strangled and her two daughters were tied to their beds and left to die in a gasoline-fueled fire. Jurors in New Haven Superior Court voted unanimously to send Steven Hayes to death row after deliberating over four days. Judge Jon Blue will impose the sentence on Dec. 2. The judge, in thanking the jurors for their service, said, “You have been exposed to images of depravity and horror that no human being should have to see.” William Petit, the husband and father of the victims, said the verdict was not about revenge. “Vengeance belongs to the Lord,” Petit said. “This is about justice. We need to have some rules in a civilized society.”
UNITED STATES
Canadian wins big
A 23-year-old college dropout from Quebec on Monday became the first Canadian champion of the World Series of Poker, taking home US$8.9 million. Jonathan Duhamel of Montreal beat out Florida native John Racener, 24, after 90 minutes of play on the last day, emitting primal screams as he gripped mounds of cash he won in poker’s richest and most prestigious crown. The duo were the final two remaining in an event that began in July with 7,319 entrants, who put up US$10,000 each or won entry in smaller tournaments.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in