SOUTH KOREA
Marine kills three marines
A marine corporal went on shooting rampage yesterday, killing four fellow marines and wounding one on a Yellow Sea island base near the nation’s border with North Korea, officials said. The alleged shooter was taken into custody, but his motive remained unclear, defense ministry officials said. The officials, who declined to give their names because of official policy, said the corporal, surnamed Kim, was wounded, but it was unclear whether he tried to kill himself or was hurt when he was apprehended. One of the slain marines was an officer, while the other two were rank-and-file soldiers, the officials said. The shooting on Ganghwa Island, about 70km west of Seoul, was being investigated, the officials said.
AUSTRALIA
Pub sorry for evicting Sikh
A pub chain was seeking to apologize yesterday to a Sikh man who was evicted from a bar for wearing a turban. The man was wrongly evicted from a pub in Brisbane on Sunday because staff decided that his turban did not comply with its policy against patrons with headwear, Spirit Hotels said in a statement. “The patron should not have been asked to remove his turban, and we are attempting to contact the patron to apologize,” the statement said. Many of the country’s pubs ban headwear so that troublemakers can be readily identified from security camera footage. Sikhs’ turbans readily identify then as followers of their Indian religion. Wearing a turban is a tenet of the faith, along with unshorn hair and a beard.
CHINA
Tot survives 10-story fall
State media reported that a toddler was in critical condition after surviving a 10-story fall by being caught by a passing woman. Media reports said the two-year-old girl, Niu Niu, was left unattended on Saturday in the family’s 10th floor apartment outside Hangzhou, when her grandmother went on an errand. The reports said passer-by Wu Juping saw the toddler hanging from the window and then ran over when she saw Niu Niu fall. Sunday’s reports said 31-year-old Wu broke her left arm catching the child, who is hospitalized with internal bleeding and other injuries.
TURKMENISTAN
President sings on TV
President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov marked his birthday by singing on national TV a love song whose music and words he had penned himself. He serenaded viewers with the love song For You, My White Flowers on a special TV show late on Saturday celebrating his 54th birthday. Berdymukhamedov was shown in casual clothes, wearing gray slacks, a shirt and green pullover, singing the song and accompanying himself on guitar. The song was also shown on a giant screen to a concert attended by 3,500 people in Ashgabat, with the audience standing and applauding during the song. Berdymukhamedov is fond of showing off his skills away from politics. In April he staged an impressive display of his horsemanship on the back of a rare Akhal-Teke horse. Berdymukhamedov is seeking to very cautiously ease the country out of the isolation of his eccentric predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, who died in 2006. He has cut back on some of the excesses of Niyazov. However, observers have noted a budding cult of personality, with giant banners of Berdymukhamedov’s face hanging on government buildings, while critics said his stabs at reform were little more than window dressing.
UNITED STATES
Inmate protests porn ban
A Michigan jail inmate says he’s being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment because he cannot have pornography. In a handwritten lawsuit, 21-year-old Kyle Richards claims his civil rights are being violated at the Macomb County Jail. Richards says denying his request for erotic material subjects him to a “poor standard of living” and “sexual and sensory deprivation.” The Michigan Department of Corrections told the Detroit News that prisons allow some pornographic material, though it is banned at the jail. The American Civil Liberties Union says prisons have a lot of leeway.
UNITED STATES
Diplomat seeks asylum
The deputy chief of mission at Myanmar’s embassy in Washington is seeking political asylum, Radio Free Asia reported on Sunday. Career diplomat Kyaw Win, 59, had been posted in Washington since 2008 and defected because Myanmar’s leaders were unwilling to relax their grip on power, the news agency said. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said it does not comment on asylum cases. Win, who served in four other capitals during his 31 years as a diplomat, is the second deputy chief of mission from Myanmar to seek asylum in Washington.
UNITED STATES
Power lines started wildfire
Fire officials battling the Los Alamos wildfire said they have determined that a tree falling onto power lines sparked the blaze. The fire erupted on June 26 and has since scorched 490km2 northwest of Santa Fe. It is 19 percent contained. Until Sunday, officials had not released a cause of the fire, which initially caused alarm as it burned close to the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory. Los Alamos and nearby communities were evacuated nearly a week ago, but about 12,000 residents were allowed to go home on Sunday.
MEXICO
Cabanas’ widow killed
Authorities in the southern state of Guerrero say unidentified gunmen have killed the widow of legendary guerrilla leader Lucio Cabanas. A statement from the state’s Public Security Office said 54-year-old Isabel Anaya Nava was shot and killed along with her 58-year-old sister Reyna as they left a church in the community of Xaltianguis. Authorities said on Sunday the sisters had gone to the church to sell food when they were shot by assailants in a blue car. The motive for their killing was still not known and no arrests had been made. Xaltianguis is a community near Acapulco. Cabanas led the Mexican guerrilla group the Party of the Poor and died in a shoot-out with authorities in 1974.
UNITED KINGDOM
BBC seeks Twitter ban
A group of senior BBC executives are campaigning to introduce a BBC-wide ban on actors, writers and other talent involved in its productions using social networking sites to disclose details of their work. According to senior sources, the need for a ban “was a widely held view” and “conversations have started” regarding a change to contracts to forbid talent from using Twitter and other public internet forums to discuss details of their involvement in BBC productions if the information is confidential or sensitive. The campaign follows a spate of revelations on Twitter that, the executives claim, have disrupted press and marketing campaigns. They hope a ban will prevent storyline spoilers, casting news or press announcements from leaking out.
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