SOUTH KOREA
Sex workers stage protest
Hundreds of sex workers and pimps rallied on Tuesday near a red-light district in Seoul to protest a police crackdown on brothels. A crowd of about 400 people, mostly women wearing baseball caps, masks and sunglasses, chanted slogans like, “Guarantee the right to live” during the four-hour rally. At one point, about 20 protesters in their underwear and covered in body and face paint doused themselves in flammable liquid in an apparent attempt to burn themselves, but others stopped them from lighting any flames. The rally comes weeks after officials began stationing police cars near brothels in a bid to drive away people looking to pay for sex. The sex workers accuse a nearby department store of pushing police to take such measures. As part of their protest, a group of sex workers on Sunday tried to buy expensive items at the department store with only coins; when they were rejected, they placed large piles of coins on the department store’s floors.
Photo: AFP Photo/PROGRESTARINC
SOUTH KOREA
Refugee awaits ruling
A North Korean refugee is waging a court battle against the South’s government, claiming 22 relatives in the North were sent to prison after Seoul inadvertently leaked his identity to the press. Lee Kwang-su, 42, said he repeatedly asked officials who were questioning him after his arrival in 2006 to keep his identity confidential for fear of reprisals against relatives, Yonhap news agency reported yesterday. However, he said the information was quickly leaked to the media, which led to the disappearance of his kin in the North. “They were sent to a political prison camp where they would have been condemned to death,” Lee told the news agency. Lee, who now lives in the US, sued Seoul in 2008 for 1.15 billion won (US$1.06 million) in compensation. In October last year, a district court acknowledged authorities inadvertently leaked such details, but said there was a lack of evidence about the fate of his relatives in the North. The court awarded him 35 million won, but Lee appealed the case and is seeking a bigger payout. Another court is scheduled to issue a ruling today.
MALAYSIA
Evading man falls to death
A former policeman fell to his death from a 16th floor hotel window ledge as he tried to evade a raid by the Islamic morality police, officials said yesterday. Islamic religious department officials carry out regular raids throughout the country, arresting Muslim Malays for khalwat, or “close proximity,” under religious laws that bar unmarried Muslims from being alone with a member of the opposite sex. District police chief Zulkarnain Abdul Rahman said the 49-year-old was with a 40-year-old woman, who was not his wife, when the incident occurred on Tuesday. The country has a dual-track legal system and Islamic courts can try Muslims for religious and moral offenses.
CHINA
World’s oldest panda dies
State media say the world’s oldest panda has died at the age of 34. The Global Times reported Ming Ming died from old age and had kidney failure. She had been living at a zoo or preserve in Guangdong Province. The China Panda Protection Center in Sichuan Province said in a statement she died on May 7, but it was reported only on Tuesday in local media. More details on her were not available. The newspaper said wild pandas live 15 years on average and captive ones 22 years.
RUSSIA
Putin stars in video game
A khaki-clad Prime Minister Vladimir Putin issues commands, assisted by a voluptuous red-haired aide with a resemblance to the spy Anna Chapman in a new computer game developed by a Russian company. Putin “is the commander-in-chief, the leader of the game, he is the constant right hand of the player,” said Varvara Zolotova, chief marketing officer of Moscow developers Progrestar Inc. “He is the leader just as in life he is for young people.” The young-looking Putin, with a full head of hair, walks around, gun pointed in a khaki shirt and gives players assignments in the game, called Voinushka, or “Shoot ’em Up”. He is also depicted on the online game’s opening page in army uniform, with his sleeves rolled up over toned muscles and gun pointed James Bond-style. The game was launched last month and is available as an application on Russia’s two most popular social networking sites.
DENMARK
Claims in Arctic planned
The government plans to lay claim to the North Pole and other areas in the Arctic, where melting ice is uncovering new shipping routes, fishing grounds and drilling opportunities for oil and gas, a leaked government document showed on Tuesday. The draft document titled “Strategy for the Arctic” said the nation’s Science Ministry has started collecting data to formally submit a claim for those areas to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf no later than 2014. Russia, Norway, Canada and the US have their own claims — sometimes competing — in a region believed to hold as much as 25 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas.
SLOVAKIA
Cannibal’s victims found
The nation’s top police officer said information from a computer that belonged to a suspected cannibal has led police to a grave containing the remains of two women. Jaroslav Spisiak said the women were in a shallow grave found on Tuesday in the woods near the eastern town of Kysak. He said the bodies — likely the remains of two Slovak women — were cut into pieces. The 43-year-old suspect was critically wounded on May 10 after a gun fight with officers during an undercover police operation to apprehend him. Police believe the man used the Internet to search for a person who wanted to commit suicide and would agree to let him eat the body.
UKRAINE
Twin smugglers fined
A Frenchman who tried to smuggle his twin daughters born to a surrogate mother out of the country said he and his father have been fined and their van confiscated. A judge in the western town of Berehovo on Tuesday fined Patrice Le Roch 15,000 hryvna (US$1,900) and his father, Bernard, 14,000 hryvna (US$1,750) for trying to cross the Hungarian border with the infants hidden under a mattress in the van in March. They said they acted out of despair after the French government refused to issue the babies with passports because it does not recognize surrogacy. Le Roch said he wants the Mercedes camping van back and will contest the ruling. The family is continuing a legal battle to declare the girls French citizens and allow them to leave the country.
CANADA
Fake drugs, goods seized
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Tuesday seized hundreds of thousands of counterfeit Viagra and Cialis pills, as well as designer label clothes and accessories from China, that were destined for sale in Toronto. Police said they intercepted a package that led them to a warehouse filled with blister packs of counterfeit erectile dysfunction pills, and boxes used to prepare them for resale. The estimated total value of the seized counterfeit drugs exceeds US$1 million, while the clothing and accessories are worth more than US$5 million, they said. Only one person was charged with possession of property obtained by crime. Abrahaam Benmoise, 56, is scheduled to appear in court on June 10.
UNITED STATES
Mississippi executes man
Mississippi executed a man on Tuesday for raping and killing an elderly woman in 1994, officials said. It was the southern state’s second execution in a week. Corrections officials said Rodney Gray, 38, was pronounced dead at 6:12pm after receiving a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Parchman. For the second time in Mississippi, the lethal cocktail of drugs injected into the inmate included a controversial drug once reserved for putting down sick animals, in addition to two other products. A growing number of states are also using pentobarbital, a drug commonly used for animal euthanasia, because of a shortage of the anesthetic sodium thiopental. On May 10, another death row inmate was executed using the new cocktail of drugs; another execution is planned for later this month. Ohio earlier put to death 63-year-old inmate Daniel Bedford using a single, large dose of pentobarbital. The Supreme Court had denied a last-minute appeal to halt Gray’s execution, who proclaimed his innocence until his death for having kidnapped, raped and killed 79-year-old Grace Blackwell.
MEXICO
Ex-official charged over fire
A judge has ordered a former government official to stand trial on homicide and abuse of authority charges in a daycare center fire that killed 49 children and injured 70 nearly two years ago. Suspect Arturo Leyva Lizarraga is the former Sonora state representative for the Mexican Social Security Institute, which oversaw the daycare center. He faces charges equivalent to involuntary or negligent homicide. Police arrested Leyva Lizarraga on May 10. Social security officials contracted out child services to the privately run center, which burned when a fire spread from a neighboring warehouse on June 5, 2009. Critics say officials ignored fire hazards and allowed the center to operate.
MEXICO
Officials detained for abuse
Prosecutors have detained two National Immigration Institute officials for allegedly prostituting female Central American migrants in the southern state of Chiapas. The charges follow a widespread shake-up in the agency amid accusations of abuses against migrants. The suspects in the prostitution case are the former assistant director of a migrant holding facility and a former assistant head of immigration services in a city on the Guatemalan border. The two migration agents, who were arrested on Tuesday, face charges of human trafficking and corrupting minors. A Honduran victim said one of the officials used threats to force her to work as a prostitute.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
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