NEW ZEALAND
Man beheaded on beach
A man was decapitated in front of his family while taking a home-made hovercraft on a test run, reports said yesterday. Police said the 40-year-old, whose name has not been released, died instantly when he was struck by a propeller blade while using the hovercraft at Muriwai beach, west of Auckland, on Sunday, the New Zealand Herald reported. The newspaper said it was the first time the man had driven the hovercraft, which he had assembled from a kit. Fairfax Media said an engineer was examining the remains of the hovercraft and the death had been referred to the coroner.
PHILIPPINES
Policeman suspect in killing
An off-duty police officer is the main suspect in the killing of an 18-year-old Norwegian tourist outside a bar in a Manila suburb where he tried to stop a fight, the chief investigator said yesterday. Police said Mikael Troy Johansen Rasay left the bar with friends early on Sunday when he saw a commotion across the street and tried to break up a fight between a man and a woman. Chief Inspector Rodelio Marcelo, head of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit of the Quezon City police, said that Rasay, 1.91cm tall and with an athletic build, fought and knocked down two men. Gunfire rang out moments later, and witnesses reported seeing another man chasing and shooting Rasay.
CAMBODIA
Girl killed in explosion
An eight-year-old girl was killed on Tuesday in an explosion at a crematorium after her relatives poured gasoline on her late grandmother’s casket to make it burn faster, police said. Twelve others, all mourners attending the funeral service, were injured in the blast in Kampong Cham Province, Stung Trang district police chief Chea Thearith said. One male relative was in a critical condition in hospital, he said.
PHILIPPINES
Militants suspected in blast
Al-Qaeda-linked militants are among the suspects in a powerful bomb blast that killed a security guard on his way to work and wounded 12 others, including a seven-year-old girl, Cotabato City police chief Superintendent Roberto Badian said. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but army ordnance experts reported that the bomb design closely resembled that used by suspected Muslim guerrillas and militants belonging to Jemaah Islamiyah in at least three recent attacks, regional army spokesman Colonel Prudencio Asto said.
LITHUANIA
Mayor crushes Mercedes
Drivers who park in bicycle lanes would normally worry about receiving a fine or having their vehicle towed. They probably do not expect to have their car crushed beneath the wheels of an armored personnel carrier with the mayor at the controls. Vilnius Mayor Arturas Zuokas drove over — and wrecked — a Mercedes in a stunt to serve as a warning to anyone who thinks about parking illegally. In a video released by the city government, Zuokas is seen beaming triumphantly as he rides roughshod over the car. He cleans up the mess of crushed glass at the end of the video, before riding away on a bike. “The mayor hopes that he will not have to repeat his performance to have drivers heed his message, although he says that he is prepared to do so,” his spokeswoman Irma Juskenaite said — with a smile.
ITALY
Migrants’ boat lands safely
A boat carrying 330 migrants from Libya arrived late on Tuesday on the island of Lampedusa, a day after officials found 25 people choked to death in the engine room of another Libyan refugee boat. Tuesday’s wooden refugee vessel, accompanied to shore by the coast guard, was just 15m long and carried migrants, mostly from Somalia and Nigeria, including 50 women and four children.
ITALY
Draft burqa ban approved
A parliamentary commission has approved a draft law banning women from wearing veils that cover their faces in public. The draft passed by the Constitutional Affairs Commission on Tuesday would prohibit women from wearing a burqa, naqib or any other garb that covers the face in such circumstances. It would expand a decades-old law that for security reasons prohibits people from wearing face-covering items such as masks in public places. Women who violate the ban would face fines, while third parties who force women to cover their faces in public would be fined 30,000 euros (US$43,000) and face up to 12 months in jail.
VIETNAM
New Cabinet approved
The National Assembly approved a new Cabinet yesterday that is likely to enhance the power of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, but points largely to continuity over the next five years. Analysts see all four deputy prime ministers as supporters of the prime minister. As expected, parliament also confirmed central bank Governor Nguyen Van Binh, a Russian-trained technocrat, and endorsed an audit and accounting expert as finance minister. Two-thirds of the Cabinet’s seats were unchanged or were passed to deputies.
MALAYSIA
‘Insulting’ TV ads nixed
A TV station axed a series of commercials to mark Ramadan after angry viewers complained the ads insulted non-Muslim minorities. The three commercials began airing recently to remind viewers of Ramadan, which began on Monday. One 30-second clip depicted an ethnic Chinese girl eating while Muslims watching her, another showed her wearing a sleeveless blouse and in the last one, she was shouting at a stall owner. The scenes were followed by messages urging viewers to show respect for Ramadan by not eating in public, wearing revealing clothing or being loud. Viewers slammed private station 8TV for the ads, which they said stereotyped minority Chinese and imposed Islamic practices on non-Muslims. The station withdrew the clips and issued an apology late on Tuesday on its Facebook page.
UNITED STATES
Tribe recognizes gay unions
A Native American tribe in Washington state has adopted a law recognizing gay marriage, making it only the second tribe in the country known to do so. The Suquamish Tribal Council voted on Monday to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples on its reservation near Seattle, after the measure gained support from more than 100 tribal members at a meeting this spring. The new law allows the tribal court to issue a marriage license to two unmarried people, regardless of their sex, if they’re at least 18 years old and at least one of them is enrolled in the tribe. It will be up to other courts to decide if unions granted under the ordinance will be recognized elsewhere in the state, the tribe’s attorney Michelle Hansen said. Gay marriage is still illegal in the state, but the legislature this year approved a measure recognizing same-sex unions from other jurisdictions, including other nations, such as Canada.
ARGENTINA
Judge rents out to johns
A Supreme Court justice faces a possible ethics investigation for renting out apartments used for prostitution. Justice Eugenio Zaffaroni has said he had no idea that six of his 15 rental properties were being used as brothels. Opposition lawmakers demanded on Tuesday that the justice be called to testify before a congressional ethics committee about exactly what he knew, and when. The apartments were identified in a series of criminal complaints filed by La Alameda, a group that fights sexual slavery. Zaffaroni has said he delegated the job of managing the apartments to a legal representative and that he didn’t know any of the tenants.
MEXICO
‘The Korean’ arrested
An alleged drug trafficker suspected of helping abduct and kill 20 local tourists has been arrested in the resort city of Acapulco, federal police said on Tuesday. Moises Montero Alvarez, nicknamed “The Korean,” was captured on Monday along with a 21-year-old and two teenagers believed to be accomplices. Alvarez, 42, is suspected of being a leader in the local Independent Cartel of Acapulco. He is accused of helping to carry out the Sept. 30 kidnapping of 20 vacationing men from Michoacan state. Authorities believe the tourists had been mistaken by drug traffickers for members of the rival La Familia cartel.
MEXICO
More poll workers kidnapped
A second polling firm reported three workers missing on Tuesday in a western state plagued by drug violence, two days after six workers from another survey company vanished from the same place. The nine disappearances in an area of Michoacan state considered a stronghold of warring drug cartels are being treated as kidnappings, according to a Michoacan state government spokesman who was not authorized to be quoted by name.
BRAZIL
Deforestation accelerates
Deforestation in the Amazon accelerated in June, with more than 300km2 destroyed, a 17 percent increase over the previous month, government researchers said on Tuesday. The National Institute for Space Research said 312.6km2 were destroyed in June, based on the preliminary analysis of satellite photos of the vast rainforest. May had seen a decrease in deforestation to 268km2 from 477km2 in April. In April, more than 400km2 of forests were destroyed in a single state, Mato Grosso, which is seen as a major agricultural frontier and is used for cattle ranches and soybean farming.
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