SOUTH KOREA
Church founder investigated
Prosecutors launched a investigation yesterday into the founder of South Korea’s largest church, who has been accused by religious elders of embezzlement involving millions of US dollars. Twenty-nine elders of the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul asked prosecutors on Tuesday to investigate Reverend Cho Yong-gi and his eldest son, Hee-jun, for allegedly siphoning off donations worth 23 billion won (US$20 million). Cho denies the allegations, calling them a smear campaign.
SOUTH KOREA
Religious leaders visit North
Religious leaders left Seoul yesterday for a rare joint visit to North Korea, saying they want their trip to Pyongyang to ease high cross-border tensions. Among the 24-member delegation were heads of seven major religious groups including Roman Catholics, Protestants and Buddhists. During their four-day stay they are scheduled to hold joint services and other events with their counterparts. “We hope to convey our aspiration for peace to North Korea,” they said in a joint statement.
AUSTRALIA
PM won’t watch flag-sex TV
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said yesterday that she did not plan to watch a TV program showing two comedians playing her and her partner blanketed by the national flag after having sex on her office floor. The third episode of the satirical series At home with Julia, which was to be aired last night by the government-owned Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC), has been widely criticized by lawmakers and the media as disrespectful to the national flag and the post of prime minister. “I’m not intending to comment on it,” Gillard told Nine Network TV yesterday. “I’ve got some bigger things on my mind,” she said.
AUSTRALIA
No mega-brothel for Sydney
Sydney’s city council has voted down plans for a mega-brothel featuring rooms with multiple beds and pool tables, likening the development to a super-sized shopping mall that would threaten competition. The proposed A$12 million (US$12.2 million) extension to the “Stiletto” premises in Sydney’s Camperdown, doubling its working rooms and creating a new wing, would have made it Australia’s biggest brothel. However, city councilors rejected the application on Monday night, saying it was too ambitious and would threaten other brothels.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Arrow attack suspect caught
Police say they have arrested a teenage tribesman suspected of shooting a New Zealand tourist with arrows. The June 19 attack in the North Fly District seriously wounded 28-year-old Matt Scheurich who was hit with arrows in his stomach and chest. Police inspector Wesley Tomutagweda said yesterday that 19-year-old Francis Neobia was arrested on Sept. 8 and has been charged with attempted murder. The inspector said the teen is a known “troublemaker” who has confessed to the attack.
INDONESIA
Boat sinks, musicians die
Police say a wooden boat carrying dozens of Balinese musicians has sunk in high waves, killing 11 people. Rescuers are scouring the waters for 14 others still missing, including the captain. Colonel Agus Doeta Soepranggono says members of a traditional percussion troupe were yesterday heading from Bali to the nearby island of Nusa Penida to perform at a cremation ceremony when their vessel capsized.
RUSSIA
Matviyenko gets No. 3 job
The upper house of parliament yesterday elected former Saint Petersburg governor Valentina Matviyenko as its speaker, giving her in principle the third-most important post in the country. Matviyenko, who was in charge of Russia’s second city from 2003 until earlier this year, was overwhelmingly approved as Federation Council speaker in a ceremonial vote with 140 votes in favor, one abstention and none against. The council post became vacant after its former incumbent, Sergei Mironov, was ousted apparently for being critical of the Kremlin, a surreal charge given that he heads what is nominally an opposition party
AUSTRIA
Man kept aunt in fridge
A man has admitted keeping the corpse of his elderly aunt in the freezer for several months to continue claiming her pension and benefits payments, police said on Tuesday. The 47-year-old unemployed man from the village of Neuhofen an der Ybbs told investigators he had “agreed” to do so with his aunt before her death in June at the age of 88, police said. Police discovered the body on Monday after relatives became suspicious.
ROMANIA
Transylvanians turn to coffins
Carpenters in the mountains of Transylvania are churning out cut-price coffins in a bid to beat the rising costs of death. Ilie Troanca says he’s beating the recession blues with bargain coffins that sell for around 100 euros (US$136). So far, he’s sold just a few hundred, but the coffins have only been on the market for a couple of months. He has already attracted plenty of attention far beyond the Transylvanian city of Sibiu, 300km northwest of Bucharest. “I saw there was an opportunity and that we had unused space,” said Troanca, director of the Sibiu state timber and forest industry, which oversees 180,000 hectares of oak, beech, pine forests. The no-frills coffins sell for 350 to 450 lei (US$112 to US$145) plus 24 percent sales tax, depending on the wood and design.
UNITED STATES
Yelling made grizzly attack
A couple probably provoked a fatal attack by a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park by yelling and running away from it despite advice to the contrary, an investigation has concluded. Brian Matayoshi, 57, was mauled and killed by the bear, which then picked up his wife, Marilyn, by her backpack before dropping her and leaving with its two cubs, said Tuesday’s official report, accompanied by a recording of 911 calls. The couple had encountered the mother bear with her cubs on the Wapiti Lake Trailhead, a popular route in the sprawling park, which spans the US states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, on the morning of July 6.
PHILIPPINES
Teen shoots friend, himself
Police say a 13-year-old boy shot his 16-year-old friend inside a busy mall and then turned the gun on himself, leaving both brain dead. Police chief Wilson Santos of Pampanga province’s Mexico township says authorities are investigating how the 13-year-old obtained a .22 caliber pistol and smuggled it into the mall on Tuesday. Santos said Wednesday that the boys were in a relationship and that the younger one, apparently in a fit of jealously, left a suicide note that he was willing to die together with his friend. Dr Alfonso Danac said that they were being kept alive at a private hospital by ventilators and medicine, and that their parents have decided to donate the boys’ corneas and kidneys.
BRAZIL
Anti-corruption rally held
More than 2,000 protesters took to the streets in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday over growing corruption and after a profusion of major scandals claimed the jobs of several prominent politicians. The demonstrators, part of a growing national anti-corruption movement, carried placards that read “Down With Corruption” and “Impunity is the only sure thing that you get with corrupt politicians.” Much of the invective was directed toward President Dilma Rousseff, who in her brief tenure has been rocked by a series of corruption scandals that have toppled members of her Cabinet and tainted several lawmakers.
CANADA
Complaint over blackface
A student who filmed white business students in blackface and chanting in mock Jamaican accents on Tuesday said he was filing a complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission about the incident. Anthony Morgan, a McGill University student of Jamaican descent, said he was passing by and used his BlackBerry to record the students of HEC Montreal business school dressed in the colors of the Jamaican flag with their skin painted black. He said some of the students were also chanting, “Smoke more weed.” The school has apologized over the incident, but Morgan said complaining to the rights commission would help the school gain access to its resources to deal with the issue.
BRAZIL
Prison chief ignored rape
Francisco Mota Bernandes was sacked as head of the prison system in the state of Para on Tuesday after a 14-year-old girl complained that she was raped for four days in a penitentiary. He was the highest-ranking of 21 people fired since last weekend over the incident, in which the teenager — who was not named — said she escaped from a rural prison colony 50km from Para’s main city, Belem. She told police she had suffered four days of sexual abuse in the prison colony, where 350 inmates are held. She is now being cared for in a shelter under governmental protection.
BRAZIL
LGBT toilet set up
There are three toilet options now for revelers at the Cidade de Deus shantytown’s samba headquarters: his, hers and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual). The president of the Rio samba group said the third option was added at the request of its transsexual members. Roberto dos Santos says women didn’t like transsexuals using their bathroom, but they faced threats if they used the men’s. The group’s carnival director, Carlos da Silva, hailed the new option made available this week. He said people of all sexual orientations were more comfortable this way. However, the head of an LGBT rights group, Marco Prado, said prejudice against transsexuals should be openly discussed instead of avoided by creating a separate bathroom.
MEXICO
Police find 35 bodies
Suspected drug traffickers drove two trucks to a main avenue in Boca del Rio and dumped 35 bodies during rush hour while gunmen stood guard and pointed their weapons at frightened motorists. Veracruz State Attorney General Reynaldo Escobar Perez said the bodies were left piled in two trucks and on the ground at an underpass near the city’s biggest shopping mall. Police had identified seven of the victims and all had criminal records for murder, drug dealing, kidnapping and extortion and were linked to organized crime, Escobar said. He did not say to what group the victims belonged.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in