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.
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
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