AUSTRALIA
Wife who torched hubby free
A woman who burned her husband to death has been given a suspended sentence for manslaughter, after a judge determined she had snapped following decades of spousal abuse. Rajini Narayan set fire to her husband in 2008 after discovering he had had an affair. South Australian Supreme Court Justice John Sulan said yesterday the woman’s distress had been compounded by years of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of her husband. Sulan sentenced Narayan to six years in jail, then suspended it, saying she had already suffered enough.
SINGAPORE
Man trapped with corpse
A man trapped for nine days in a shipping container is recovering in a Singapore hospital after being found with a co-worker’s corpse, police and media reports said yesterday. Din Islam, 30, was discovered on Sunday inside the container at Singapore’s Pasir Panjang Terminal, next to the body of another man. “Investigations indicate that both men are believed to be port workers from Bangladesh who were trapped inside the container by accident while they were taking a rest,” a Singapore police spokesman said. Singapore tabloid the New Paper said Din and the decomposing body of the fellow worker were discovered after a driver heard the survivor banging on the walls of the container. The two had entered the container to take a nap midway through their 12-hour night shift on April 1 in the Bangladeshi port of Chittagong, the daily said. “Then we just slept and we didn’t know that the container had been picked up and transported onto the ship. By the time we woke up, we were probably already on the ship,” Din was quoted as saying. He said his colleague collapsed and died after a few days in the container, with nothing but a pack of cigarettes between them.
PHILIPPINES
Army arrests bomb suspect
A suspected militant believed to be a liaison between Muslim rebels and a Southeast Asian terrorist network has been arrested, officials said yesterday. Security forces apprehended Abi Pamanay in Mindanao Island on Tuesday, Philippine army chief Lieutenant General Arturo Ortiz said. Ortiz accused Pamanay of being a “senior associate” of notorious bomb-maker Abdul Basit Usman, who has been on the run for his alleged links with terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah and the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group.
NORTH KOREA
Pyongyang promotes generals
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has promoted dozens of senior military officers to mark a major anniversary this week, state media said yesterday. Kim issued an order on Tuesday to promote two officers to colonel-general, five to lieutenant-general and 38 to major-general. The order was issued to mark the “Day of the Sun,” the anniversary tomorrow of the birth of late founding leader Kim Il-sung, the official news agency said.
SOUTH KOREA
Seoul simulates attack
Troops staged an exercise yesterday to guard nuclear power plants against a possible attack by North Korean agents, the defense ministry said. The drill took place at the Gori complex on the southeast coast, the ministry said. The plant has four reactors, including the first one built in 1978, and four more are under construction. The drill simulated the infiltration of North Korean agents to bomb a nuclear power plant, a ministry spokesman said.
BAHRAIN
Rights group calls for probe
Bahrain should investigate the death in police custody of three Shiites, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday, adding that one of the bodies bore signs of physical abuse. The government has launched a crackdown after its forces quelled weeks of protests led mainly by its disgruntled Shiite majority last month. The opposition says hundreds have been arrested and four have died in police custody over the past 10 days. HRW said it had seen the body of Ali Saqer, one of the men who died in police custody, and that it bore signs of severe physical abuse. Bahrain has accused human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, of doctoring pictures of the corpse.
BELARUS
Bombing suspect detained
A Belarussian man was detained as a suspect in the subway bombing that killed 12 people and wounded more than 200 on Monday, officials said yesterday. Police detained two Belarussian men in connection with the bombing and one of them may have placed the bomb at the station, Deputy Prosecutor General Andrey Shved said, adding that the two men come from the same town and know each other. “We can say with a high degree of certainty that one of those detained is a perpetrator,” he said.
CROATIA
Two charged over torture
A prosecutor has charged a former Yugoslav army intelligence chief and another officer with war crimes for the torture of Croat prisoners in camps in Serbia during the 1991 to 1995 war. The indictment by the prosecutor in Osijek says General Aleksandar Vasiljevic and former commander of the camps Colonel Miroslav Zivanovic did nothing as senior officers to prevent the torture and harassment of prisoners in five prison camps throughout Serbia. The camps were set up during the conflict, which erupted when Croatia declared independence from Serb-led Yugoslavia. About 10,000 people died in the war.
AFGHANISTAN
Ten Afghan elders killed
A suicide attack ripped through a gathering of tribal elders in the east yesterday, killing 10 people, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. The bomber struck in Kunar, an insurgent stronghold on the border with Pakistan. “A suicide attacker targeted a gathering of tribal elders in the Asmar District of Kunar today,” Bashary said. “Ten people have been martyred and seven have been injured.” He said the dead included a key local pro-government elder. District police chief Mohammad Shoaib said the bomber blew himself up after approaching an elder, Malik Zarin, to hug him in greeting. “The suicide attacker approached them, hugged Malik Zarin and then detonated the explosives strapped to his body,” Shoaib said.
PAKISTAN
US drone kills six: officials
US drones fired four missiles into a vehicle in the lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border, killing six suspected militants yesterday, Pakistani security officials said. It was the first drone strike reported in Pakistan since March 17, when 39 people, including civilians, died in an attack that further shook the fragile alliance with the US in the war on militants. “It was a US drone attack. Four missiles were fired. The target was a vehicle. Several militants were killed. The death toll is six,” one military official said on condition of anonymity. Another official confirmed the same details of the attack near a town in South Waziristan District.
UNITED STATES
Mom drives kids into river
A woman who had just been involved in a domestic dispute loaded her four children into a minivan on Tuesday night before letting one out and driving the rest of them into the Hudson River, firefighters said. The woman and three young children were killed. The 10-year-old boy who had been let out of the minivan ran to a nearby fire station and alerted firefighters, Chief Michael Vatter said. The boy told firefighters his mother had driven off a boat ramp in Newburgh, about 100km north of New York City, and into the murky water of the river, Vatter said. Inside with her were the boy’s siblings: two boys, ages five and two, and an 11-month-old girl. Firefighters and police officers used a heavy-duty tow truck to pull the van up the boat ramp and onto land, but everyone inside was dead, Vatter said.
UNITED STATES
Drop ties, patients say
A survey of patients at dermatologists’ offices sends a clear message to doctors about their attire: scrap the necktie, but don’t lose the white coat just yet. “We’re going to proclaim that ties are dead,” said Dean Morrell, one of the study’s authors and director of pediatric and adolescent dermatology at the University of North Carolina. “Only about 20 percent of people felt like their male physicians should wear a necktie,” he said. The results, published in the Archives of Dermatology, also found more than half of adult patients expected to be treated by a physician wearing a white coat.
UNITED STATES
Army ‘scammer’ charged
A Chinese man was arrested on Tuesday for creating a fake US Army unit and selling immigrants on the idea that joining the squad was a path to citizenship, authorities said. Yupeng Deng (鄧玉鵬), 51, allegedly gave his “recruits” military uniforms, had them parade in a Los Angeles suburb and took them to the decommissioned USS Midway aircraft carrier, which is a museum in San Diego. Deng charged more than 100 fellow Chinese nationals between US$300 and US$450 to join the fake Army unit, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. He called his bogus squad the US Army/Military Special Forces Reserve unit, or MSFR for short, and gave himself the lofty title of “supreme commander,” prosecutors said. As well as telling recruits that belonging to the unit was a path to US citizenship, Deng urged them to pay him cash for higher military rank, according to prosecutors. He also allegedly provided them with fake documents and phony military identification cards. He was charged with theft by false pretenses, manufacturing deceptive government documents and counterfeit of an official government seal. Deng faces up to eight years in prison if convicted.
CHILE
Czech media tease Klaus
Czech media chided Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Tuesday after a viral Internet video showed him discreetly pocketing a ceremonial pen during a visit to Chile in what viewers are calling a theft. The video “The Czech Republic’s president steals a pen” shows Klaus admiring the pen during a news conference with President Sebastian Pinera, then holding it under the table where he appears to put it in his pocket. The video has logged more than 100,000 in two days and caused a media stir, with television news shows repeating the video and papers splashing it on the front page. However, a Czech presidential spokesman said Klaus had a right to take the pen. “We at the Prague Castle always give such a pen to delegations, along with a notepad,” he said.
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
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