MALAYSIA
Shiite Muslims face charges
An official says more than 200 Shiites — including Iranians, Indonesians and Pakistanis — detained in Kuala Lumpur last week may be charged with breaching Islamic laws. Nurhamizah Othman of the Selangor Islamic Religious Department says Islamic officials arrested the group, who were allegedly followers of the outlawed Shiite denomination, in central Selangor state. Officials have said the Shiite doctrine is a threat to national security because it permits the killing of Muslims from other sects who are regarded as infidels.
JAPAN
Coast guard in video trouble
Tokyo is considering punishing more than 50 coast guard officials over the leak of a video showing a collision between Japanese and Chinese vessels that sparked a major row, reports said yesterday. The officials include a 43-year-old officer who has admitted to leaking the video, the Sankei Shimbun and Kyodo News reported, quoting unnamed sources. More than 50 others might also be punished for failing to properly supervise the officer and prevent the leak of the video, they said.
MALAYSIA
Tourists die in bus crash
At least 22 people were killed when a bus carrying Thai tourists overturned on a highway after a trip to the Cameron Highlands, police and reports said yesterday. “The bus was filled with Thai tourists,” said Zakaria Yusof, acting police chief in Perak state, but he was not able to confirm whether all the dead were Thai nationals. The Star daily said the bus hit a divider and overturned as it traveled away from the Cameron Highlands.
INDONESIA
Thai dancer caught with pills
A Thai woman swallowed more than 1,200 ecstasy pills wrapped in plastic and tried to smuggle them into Bali, officials said yesterday. Customs officials said the 24-year-old woman appeared nervous and was found to have a hard stomach during a body search at Bali’s international airport as she arrived on Thursday on a flight from Bangkok. She was taken to hospital and 1,280 ecstasy pills were found in her stomach, Bali customs chief I Made Wijaya told a press conference. They weighed 402g and were worth about 448 million rupiah (US$50,000), he said. The woman, who claimed to be a dancer in Bangkok, told investigators that an Israeli man had offered to pay her US$656 to deliver the pills to Bali, Wijaya said. If convicted she faces life imprisonment or death under tough anti-drug laws.
PHILIPPINES
Hotel blaze toll rises
The death toll in a fire that swept through a budget hotel early on Sunday has risen to 16 after one of the survivors died in a hospital. The fire razed the Bed and Breakfast Pension House in Cagayan province’s capital, Tuguegarao city, burning to death 15 people. Nine of the victims were nursing students in town to take a licensing exam.
INDIA
Opposition leader arrested
Police arrested a top opposition leader in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh state, and forcibly took him to a hospital yesterday as his condition deteriorated on the fourth day of an indefinite fast to demand compensation for farmers. Telugu Desam regional party leader Chandrababu Naidu wants the state government to pay a higher rate of compensation to thousands of farmers whose crops have been devastated by recent heavy monsoon rains and subsequent flooding.
IRAN
UK ties might be cut
A parliamentary committee in Tehran has approved a draft motion to sever diplomatic ties with Britain. Lawmaker Mohammad Karamirad, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said the lawmakers made the decision in a vote on Sunday. The motion requires the approval of the full parliament and a constitutional watchdog to take effect. If approved, Karamirad said diplomatic, cultural and economic relations with London would drop to “zero,” which will teach Britain a lesson about “how to deal with the great Iranian people.”
CHILE
Miners forming corporation
The 33 miners whose dramatic rescue from the depths of a collapsed mine captured the world’s attention, plan to form a corporation to exploit their near-death experience, local media said on Sunday. The miners were the subject of a media bidding storm after their rescue in mid-October, following a record 69 days underground at a remote San Jose mine. The group has hired a law firm and appointed their peers Omar Reygadas, Raul Bustos and Juan Illanes as representatives in the marketing efforts. Once the last miner signs the document formalizing the agreement, the 33 miners will be equal partners in the corporation — unnamed for now — and will hold 80 percent of the revenue generated from their ownership of the rights.
UNITED STATES
New York sees more birds
Birdwatchers counted 6,220 birds and 59 bird species in New York City’s Central Park on Sunday. The 111th annual Christmas Bird Count found some birds that are rarely spotted in New York this time of year, such as the red-headed woodpecker. The count was undertaken by teams of birdwatchers guided by park rangers. They spent the morning canvassing the Manhattan park’s 341 hectares. Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe says the total number of birds was boosted by good weather.
BRAZIL
Lula might run again
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who hands power to his ally, Dilma Rousseff, on Jan. 1, could run for president again in 2014, his chief of staff said on Sunday. “I think that [Lula] will look at the political situation. If Dilma’s government goes well, of course she will seek re-election. If there are difficulties and Lula is the answer for [the Workers’ Party] to win, he could be a candidate,” chief of staff Gilberto Carvalho said in an interview published in the O Globo newspaper. Lula has a staggering 87 percent approval rating after his eight years in office. Asked if he would risk his favorable legacy, Carvalho said “that would be a risk ... but Lula would come back in a favorable position. Or a very necessary one.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Matt Cardle tops charts
X-Factor winner Matt Cardle has taken the coveted Christmas No. 1 slot in the British singles charts in London. He sold 439,000 copies in the six days following his win in the television talent show, propelling him straight to the top of the charts with his single When We Collide, the Official Charts Co said on Sunday. It was the biggest weekly number of sales for a non-charity release this year, outsold only by the song for Haiti earthquake victims. The original version of the track, called Many of Horror by Biffy Clyro, was a new entrant at No. 8.
‘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