CHINA
Public beatings disallowed
Members of a controversial law enforcement force in Henan Province’s capital, Zhengzhou, have been ordered to sign a pledge not to beat people up, state-run China News Service reported yesterday. The chengguan, a civilian force that enforces local laws, operates in all major cities, but is widely hated due to regular reports of violence by its members in the course of their official duties. The latest case involved a 76-year-old woman, who had come into the city on a donkey cart to sell sweet potatoes and make enough money to buy medicine for her sick son, but was stopped by a chengguan officer and beaten, media reports said. It was unclear why the beating took place, but the chengguan officer was subsequently fired, punished with 10 days’ administrative detention and fined 500 yuan (US$75), reports said.
MALAYSIA
Teens jailed for murder
A High Court official said yesterday that three teenage boys had been sentenced to indefinite imprisonment for beating their classmate to death in a boarding school hazing incident. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the boys were convicted on Monday of murdering their classmate in 2007 at a school on Borneo Island. A murder conviction carries a mandatory penalty of death by hanging for adults, but since the three were minors when they committed the crime at 16, they were sentenced to be imprisoned indefinitely. They are eligible for release if they receive a pardon from the constitutional monarch.
VIETNAM
Tiger smuggler detained
State media said police in Hanoi had detained a man for transporting the carcass of a wild tiger. The 39-year-old man was stopped by police on Sunday night as he transported the carcass in his car, the New Hanoi said. He was accused of violating regulations on the protection of endangered wildlife, an offense that carries up to three years in jail. The newspaper quoted the man as telling police that he bought the carcass, which was smuggled into the country, for 600 million dong (US$30,000) and planned to resell it for 900 million dong. In September, Hanoi police seized eight full tiger skeletons and other bones.
NEW ZEALAND
Japanese jailed over drugs
A Japanese couple who helped smuggle almost 6kg of methamphetamine into New Zealand were jailed for seven-and-a-half years yesterday. Takako and Kazuhiko Takiguchi pleaded guilty in the Auckland High Court to drug importing and conspiracy charges relating to a methamphetamine seizure at Auckland airport in November last year, NZPA news agency reported. Prosecutors estimated the drugs had a street value of US$6 million. Judge Ailsa Duffy said that Kazuhiko, 40, and Takako, 32, had faced up to 16 years in jail for their offenses, but she discounted their sentences for a number of reasons, including early guilty pleas.
VIETNAM
Rights activist in detention
Police have opened a probe against a prominent government critic who was arrested for “propaganda against the state” and will be detained for at least four months, the state-run Thanh Nien newspaper reported yesterday. Cu Huy Ha Vu, who studied law in France, was held on Nov. 4 in Ho Chi Minh City, where police allegedly found anti-state documents on his laptop, several with calls for a multiparty system, earlier reports said. His house in Hanoi had also been searched. If convicted, Vu faces a maximum of 20 years in jail.
UNITED KINGDOM
William and Kate engaged
Royal officials announced yesterday that Prince William and Kate Middleton will marry next spring or summer in London, ending years of rumored splits, reconciliations and will-they, won’t-they speculation. Prince Charles’ Clarence House office said the couple got engaged last month during a vacation in Kenya. Prime Minister David Cameron said he announced the news during a Cabinet meeting, and it was greeted by cheers and “a great banging of the table.” Kate and William’s engagement was considered so certain that bookies had stopped taking bets on a wedding next year.
UNITED STATES
Hero dog euthanized
A dog named Target that lived through explosions in Afghanistan couldn’t survive a brief stay at an animal shelter. An unidentified employee at the Arizona facility was placed on administrative leave after euthanizing the dog by mistake, county Animal Care and Control officials said on Monday. Sergeant Terry Young, the owner of the dog, said Target frightened a suicide bomber inside a military base and potentially saved dozens of soldiers’ lives. He brought Target to the San Tan Valley area in August, when he returned home from his tour of duty. The dog escaped from the family’s back yard on Friday. A neighbor found Target wandering later on Friday and called the pound. On Friday night, Young found Target’s picture on a Web site used by Pinal County’s dog catchers to help owners track lost pets. Young figured the shelter was closed for the weekend and showed up to claim his dog on Monday, only to find out she was dead.
UNITED STATES
Woman pushed to death
An 84-year-old woman was pushed to her death from a commuter train platform in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo by an apparent stranger, authorities said on Monday. Betty Sugiyama was on the platform of the Metro Gold Line station with her sister on Sunday morning when she was pushed onto empty tracks, Los Angeles County sheriff’s Captain Michael Parker said. Sugiyama died hours later at a hospital. Jackkqueline Pogue was arrested and authorities said they planned to seek a murder charge. Investigators said the attack appeared to be unprovoked.
PARAGUAY
Expedition called off
Authorities on Monday suspended a scientific expedition into the remote Chaco woodlands after indigenous rights groups raised concerns over the welfare of tribes in the region. The British-Paraguayan expedition planned to conduct a survey of animal and plant life in the savanna 800km north of Asuncion, the environment ministry said. The decision to suspend it followed “last minute” concerns raised by indigenous rights groups and recommendations by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, the ministry said.
UNITED STATES
Waters open to fishing
Nearly all US federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico are now open to fishing, in the latest sign of recovery from a huge oil spill, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Monday. The agency said it has reopened 21,764km2 of Gulf waters to commercial and recreational fishing, extending from the Louisiana state water line south of the Alabama and Florida state line. At its closest point, the newly reopened area is about 16km from BP’s busted wellhead, which gushed nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the sea after an April 20 explosion on a BP-leased drilling rig off Louisiana’s coast.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number