CHINA
White-collar criminals flee
A top security official said nearly 600 fugitives involved in economic crimes such as fraud and embezzlement have fled and are hiding in other countries. The China Daily newspaper reported yesterday that at least 580 fugitives accused of illegal fundraising, bank loan fraud, illegally transferring funds abroad and contract fraud are hiding out in other countries — mostly in North America and Southeast Asia. The report quoted the head of the economic crime division at the Ministry of Public Security.
JAPAN
Ozawa to face panel
Political powerbroker Ichiro Ozawa said yesterday he would appear at a parliamentary ethics panel over a funding scandal, in an about-face likely to ease a rift in the ruling party. The bickering in the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has distracted the government from addressing tough policy decisions and complicated prospects for passing laws in a divided parliament, including bills needed to implement the budget for the fiscal year from April 1.
CHINA
Chief’s death sparks outrage
The gruesome weekend death of a village chief has sparked outrage among residents and Web users alleging the man was murdered after he demanded compensation for land seized by a power station. Qian Yunhui (錢雲會), the head of Zhaiqiao village in Zhejiang Province, was killed when a truck hit him as he walked across a street, state media said yesterday. Graphic photos said to show Qian crushed under the front wheel of the truck were posted on tianya.com, Netease and the popular microblogging service run by Web portal sina.com. The unlicensed driver from neighboring Anhui Province was detained along with six residents who attacked police when they arrived at the scene, the China Daily said. Local police insisted Qian’s death was a hit-and-run accident, but villagers and Web users said the 53-year-old may have been murdered after he repeatedly demanded compensation for farmland seized five years ago, the report said. Qian had been detained three times since 2005 for repeatedly demanding compensation for farmers after nearly 150 hectares of land was seized by Zhejiang Provincial Energy Group Co, the reports said. The village was entitled to up to 65 million yuan (US$10 million) in compensation, but none of the villagers have yet received any money, the Global Times said.
PHILIPPINES
US officer leaps to death
Philippine and US authorities are investigating the death of a US Navy officer who police say jumped from a second-floor staircase at Manila airport after being arrested with a sachet of cocaine. Lieutenant Commander Scintar Buenviaje Mejia leaped to his death on Monday while he was being escorted to the bathroom by a security guard, aviation police chief Pedro Desuasido said. Desuasido said the 35-year-old Mejia, a Filipino-American citizen, died of severe head injuries.
HONG KONG
Miner donates cash
China’s Zijin Mining said yesterday it would donate about US$7.5 million to help victims of a dam collapse near a tin mine that killed at least 22 people. The company, China’s top gold producer, said its board approved subsidiary Xinyi Zijin giving the 50 million yuan (US$7.5 million) to the Xinyi City government to express its “deep sorrow and regret” over the incident in September.
IRAN
Man hanged for spying
The official news agency says authorities have hanged an Iranian man convicted of spying for the country’s archenemy Israel. The report by IRNA identifies the man as Ali Akbar Siadati and says he was hanged yesterday morning in Tehran’s Evin Prison. Earlier in the week, Iran’s judiciary had announced that a spy for Israel would be executed soon. IRNA says Siadati was arrested in 2008 and accused of providing Israel with classified information on Iran’s military capabilities. The report also says he began his alleged espionage activities in 2004. There were no details on how Siadati obtained the classified information.
IRAN
Families visit journalists
Two German journalists held since October have been able to meet their families in the northwest city of Tabriz, where they are in jail, Germany’s foreign ministry confirmed yesterday. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle thanked his Iranian counterpart for his “support,” said the ministry statement, but it repeated that Germany wanted to see its two citizens freed so they could return home. The two Germans were arrested in Tabriz in October as they were interviewing the son and lawyer of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, the Iranian woman whose sentence to death by stoning has provoked international condemnation.
SERBIA
Milosevic ally sentenced
A court on Monday sentenced an ally of former strongman Slobodan Milosevic to eight years in prison for embezzling more than 65 million euros (US$85 million), Beta news agency reported. Serbia’s organized crime court found that Mihalj Kertes, a former customs chief under Milosevic, embezzled the funds in foreign currency and the Serbian dinar between 1994 and 2000, the report said. Kertes “acted upon the orders of Slobodan Milosevic” and pumped customs revenues into companies and individuals close to the regime, Judge Nada Zec was quoted as saying. Kertes put at least 14 million euros into accounts in Cyprus and also financed Milosevic’s Socialist Party of Serbia and the Serbian intelligence service, the report said quoting the verdict. Kertes is currently serving a 15-month jail term for involvement in the 1999 murder of four of Milosevic’s political opponents.
TUNISIA
Workers stage rare rally
Police and demonstrators scuffled briefly as up to 1,000 people held a rare rally on Monday in the capital calling for jobs in a show of solidarity with youths protesting in poorer regions. Three days after police opened fire on rioting demonstrators in the town of Menzel Bouzayane, killing an 18-year-old and wounding 10 others, according to union officials, some 800 to 1,000 men and women gathered outside the headquarters of the main workers’ union to call for jobs in all regions. Demonstrators brandished signs reading “Spread the Wealth” and “Balanced Development of Regions” in a message to authorities to ensure that all regions, not just those that draw tourists, get equal access to development and jobs. Several hundred police watched the protesters, at one point using clubs to hold them back. Some protesters were seen with bloody noses, but there were no signs of serious injuries. At least two people have died since demonstrations erupted in the town of Sidi Bouzid after a young university graduate set himself on fire after police confiscated the fruits and vegetables he was selling illegally. He remains in critical condition.
COLOMBIA
Santos thanks Chavez
President Juan Manuel Santos thanked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for the capture of a suspected guerrilla commander wanted in Bogota, lauding the “growing collaboration” between the countries. Since taking office in August, Santos has sought to ease a diplomatic standoff with Venezuela that was fueled by accusations by Santos’ predecessor that it harbored Colombian rebels. Santos said on Monday that Nilson Teran Ferreira, a suspected National Liberation Army commander, had been captured in Venezuela.
UNITED STATES
Assange agrees book deal
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange’s new memoir will give a full account of his life and the secretive group that has leaked large amounts of documents, publisher Alfred A. Knopf said in New York on Monday. Knopf spokesman Paul Bogaards said Assange and the publishing house reached a deal for his autobiography “just before the holiday” and that a manuscript was expected to be delivered next year. Assange told the Sunday Times newspaper in Britain that he agreed to book deals because of financial pressures from legal issues. “I don’t want to write this book, but I have to,” Assange told the Times, citing a growing legal bill that has reached more than £200,000 (US$308,000).
COLOMBIA
Chinese official to visit
Chinese State Councilor Liu Yandong (劉延東) was expected yesterday in Bogota to sign bilateral accords with President Juan Manuel Santos’ government, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday. The visit was meant “to strengthen bilateral relations,” the ministry said. Liu was to sign agreements on issues such as transport, health, education, trade, information technology and communications. China was expected to make a financial donation as well to help victims of heavy flooding this year that killed 300 people and left 2 million homeless. Santos is expected to travel to China in February on a political and trade-oriented visit.
UNITED STATES
Jackie O’s brother jailed
The half brother of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis spent Christmas in an Oregon jail for a possible probation violation. The program manager for the Jackson County Community Justice sex offender unit did not give details, but told the Medford Mail the arrest and jailing of James Auchincloss was standard procedure. In August, the 63-year-old Auchincloss pleaded guilty to two felony counts of encouraging child sex abuse for having computer images of naked boys. A judge ordered him to serve 30 days in jail as part of three years of supervised probation. The Ashland man was arrested on Dec. 22 and is being held without bail until Jan. 21. As a boy, Auchincloss carried the wedding train of his half sister up the aisle when she married John F. Kennedy.
UNITED STATES
Perez to be buried in Miami
Late Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez will be buried in the US and his remains will return home only when there is a “real democracy” in the country, one of his daughters said in Miami on Monday. A two-term president and influential figure in Venezuelan politics in the second half of the 20th century, Perez died in Miami of an apparent heart attack on Christmas Day. He was 88. Perez was a fierce critic of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whom he described in an interview as “Satan.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion