CHINA
Al-Bashir visit delayed
A visit by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted on international war crimes charges, was delayed yesterday after his plane was forced to turn back while flying over Turkmenistan, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry said. His unexpected delay forced the rescheduling of a meeting with President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤). The ministry said al-Bashir’s plane had been instructed to change route midflight, but was unable to do so and returned to Iran, where he had been for an anti-terror conference. It did not explain why the original route was altered. Al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for allegedly orchestrating atrocities in Darfur.
MALAYSIA
Overthrow allegations made
Authorities accused 30 detained opposition members yesterday of conspiring to overthrow the government and to revive communist ideologies after the activists were arrested ahead of a banned political rally. Opposition parties and human rights groups said it was a ludicrous accusation aimed at demonizing activists planning a massive street demonstration on July 9 to demand greater electoral transparency. The detention of the 30 and the allegations against them mark a dramatic escalation in tensions between the government and its political rivals before the rally, which could be Kuala Lumpur’s biggest in nearly four years.
SINGAPORE
New recruits will get iPads
New recruits to the military, air force and navy are to get a new standard-issue item of equipment besides their rifle — an iPad. The Ministry of Defense said yesterday it would be issuing “about 8,000” of the sleek, touch-screen tablet computers to recruits from November. The ministry said it was also planning to issue the devices to other servicemen next year. The cheapest iPad2 device currently retails for S$668 (US$538). Minister of Defense Neo Kian Hong said adopting the iPad would allow the Singapore Armed Forces to take advantage of the technological abilities of the city-state’s youth.
VIETNAM
Lethal injection introduced
Hanoi will this week begin carrying out the death penalty by lethal injection instead of firing squad, an official said yesterday. Legislators seeking a “more humane” method of judicial killing approved the change last year. “The law on execution by lethal injection to replace firing squads in death penalty cases will take effect from July 1, 2011, throughout Vietnam,” an official from the Ministry of Public Security said. He asked not to be identified. The ministry recently held a conference to brief police about the new law, the official said. Most death sentences in the country are handed down to drug traffickers and murderers.
AUSTRALIA
Whale attacked dinghy
A humpback whale hit a dinghy with its tail off the coast, knocking a 13-year-old boy unconscious and breaking his collarbone. Drew Hall says he was fishing with his parents in a dinghy off the north coast of New South Wales state on Sunday morning when the whale breached nearby. He said yesterday he did not see the tail coming when it crashed down on the 5.2m dinghy, smashing its canopy. His mother Karen Hall said she saw her son knocked to the floor and thought he had been killed. The boy was taken to hospital for treatment of a concussion and a broken collarbone. He was discharged on Sunday afternoon.
Agencies
UNITED KINGDOM
PM’s ally dies in port-a-potty
A close ally of Prime Minister David Cameron was found dead in a portable toilet in a backstage area at Glastonbury Festival on Sunday morning. Christopher Shale, the chairman of the West Oxfordshire Conservative Association, was chief executive of Oxford Resources. He was also a director of the Centre for Policy Studies and a sponsor of OpenEurope, a euroskeptic think tank. Cameron released a statement in which he said: “Sam and I were devastated to hear the news about Christopher. He was a great friend and has been a huge support over the last decade in west [sic] Oxfordshire.” The cause of Shale’s death are unknown.
SOMALIA
Foreign smugglers freed
The government has freed six foreigners, including three Britons and an American, convicted of smuggling millions of dollars into the nation to pay off pirates, officials said. “The six foreigners and their two planes were released ... following a presidential pardon,” magistrate Hashi Elmi Nur said on Sunday. They had been sentenced earlier this month to between 10 and 15 years in prison for smuggling in US$3.6 million in one of the planes. Nur said a US$50,000 fine had been imposed on each of the planes, which were seized by security officials at the Mogadishu airport on May 24. The nationalities of the other two released were not revealed.
FRANCE
Mountaineers’ bodies found
A British climber on Sunday found the bodies of six mountaineers who fell to their deaths in one of the worst accidents in the French Alps in years. The dead included a 16-year-old boy, two men and three women aged between 42 and 64, all French nationals, said regional prosecutor Remy Avon, who did not disclose their identities. He also distanced himself from earlier reports suggesting the group fell following an avalanche of snow and stones. “For the moment, we do not know the reason” for the fall, he said, saying that officials have opened an investigation. The mayor of nearby Villar d’Arene village, Xavier Cret, had earlier said there might have been “a slide of snow and stones” that caused the mountaineers to fall to their deaths.
GERMANY
Helgoland rejects expansion
The roughly 1,200 residents of the country’s northernmost island rejected a plan to expand its landmass to accommodate more tourists. Preliminary results released after a referendum on Sunday showed that 57 percent of Helgolanders rejected the move, public broadcaster ARD reported, deciding instead to preserve their status as a unique North Sea refuge. The 18 million euro (US$25.5 million) project to artificially restore a sandbar washed away in 1720 linking Helgoland to a smaller neighboring island, Duene, that hosts an airport and a campground was disputed for months ahead of the vote.
RUSSIA
Former agent convicted
A Moscow military court yesterday convicted in absentia former top foreign service agent, Colonel Alexander Poteyev, of betraying 10 “sleeper” spies expelled from the US last year, Interfax reported. Prosecutors had demanded a 25-year jail sentence for Poteyev, who is believed to be in the US. Local news agencies said Poteyev had until last year served as the deputy head of the Foreign Intelligence Service’s “S” department — a covert operations department involved in placing sleeper agents in foreign countries who try to pass as locals.
IRAN
Missile exercise begins
The Revolutionary Guards began a 10-day missile training exercise yesterday “to preserve its readiness against enemy strikes,” a veiled reference to attacks the US and Israel have refused to rule out to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. “The war games, dubbed ‘Great Prophet 6,’ include the testing of short, medium and long-range missiles,” Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the elite forces’ aerospace unit, was quoted as saying by the Sharq daily. Hajizadeh said the exercise, to be carried out on land and at sea, was a “message of peace and friendship to countries of the region.”
EGYPT
Official wants virginity tests
A top military official said virginity tests were needed for female protesters to head off possible charges of rape, Amnesty International reported on Sunday. The subject was raised by the London-based rights group’s chief, Salil Shetty, at a meeting in Cairo with the head of military intelligence, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. “He said virginity tests were carried out to protect the army against possible allegations of rape, and added that the army does not intend to detain women again,” an Amnesty statement said. On May 31, Amnesty called on authorities to bring to justice those responsible for forced virginity tests on female protesters, slamming it as “nothing less than torture.”
MEXICO
Gunmen seize migrants
Gunmen have kidnapped at least 60 undocumented migrants, including women and children, who were aboard a freight train trying to get to the US, a shelter director said on Sunday. Alejandro Solalinde, a priest who heads the Brothers Along the Road hostel, in rural Oaxaca state, told reporters that a dozen gunmen on Friday seized the migrants trying to make it toward the US border. Some 250 migrants were aboard the train when the gunmen climbed aboard. Many managed to flee, Solalinde said. The train, which left the Oaxacan city of Ixtepec for the eastern state of Veracruz, was stopped by the gunmen after about four hours, said Solalinde, who saw several Central Americans at his hostel on that day.
UNITED STATES
‘Thriller’ jackets auctioned
The red and black leather jacket worn by Michael Jackson in his Thriller video went under the hammer in Los Angeles for US$1.8 million on Sunday, a day after the second anniversary of the pop icon’s death. The jacket, which fetched several times its estimate of between US$200,000 and US$400,000, has “Love Michael Jackson” written on the sleeve, and a dedication in the lining to his long-time costume designers, to whom he gave it. The buyer was identified as Milton Verret, a commodities trader from Austin, Texas, who plans to have the jacket tour and be displayed at children’s hospitals around the globe to raise money for their children’s charities.
VENEZUELA
Officials say Chavez ‘well’
The government rejected reports on Sunday that President Hugo Chavez was in critical condition following emergency surgery in Cuba, saying the leader was “recovering well.” Chavez’s government said he had an operation for a pelvic abscess on June 10 and continues to mend. “He is recovering,” Minister of Information Andres Izarra told reporters in the wake of a report by Miami’s El Nuevo Herald citing unnamed US intelligence sources as saying the 56-year-old “is in critical condition — not on the brink of death, but critical indeed.”
‘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