HONG KONG
Ferry accident injures 76
A high-speed catamaran ferry slammed into a mooring pillar, injuring 76 people, including a 70-year-old woman who is in critical condition. The ferry was carrying 140 passengers yesterday when it struck the pillar on the island of Cheung Chau as it departed for the heart of the business district. Passengers shown on local TV described scenes of confusion, with people thrown to the floor and ferry seats buckling from the impact. The government says most of the injuries were minor bruises.
HONG KONG
Cardinal starts hunger strike
A prominent Catholic cardinal has embarked on a 72-hour hunger strike protesting against a court ruling that critics say violated Catholics’ right to freedom of education. “I am taking action because last week’s ruling has taken away our right to rule schools,” 79-year-old Joseph Zen (陳日君) told reporters on Thursday. “Something precious in Hong Kong has been destroyed.” Last week, the Court of Final Appeal rejected an appeal submitted by the Catholic diocese against a change in the law that in effect forces religious schools to appoint 40 percent of committee members from outside the church. The government has argued this allows for greater transparency and greater democracy, but critics say it interferes with the schools’ management and undermines freedom of education. Zen said the ruling would turn Catholic schools into non-Catholic ones because the church would no longer control their direction.
MALAYSIA
Groups oppose deportation
Opposition and rights groups yesterday stepped up calls for the government to drop a plan to send home some of the Burmese citizens who have been detained for immigration offenses. Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein this week announced a plan to send back an unspecified number of about 1,000 people from Myanmar who are held in immigration detention centers in a bid to ease overcrowding. Some Malaysians held in Myanmar would be sent home in return. “We cannot proceed with such a swap as those who flee Myanmar remain at risk of persecution from the military regime,” opposition lawmaker Lim Kit Siang said. The UN’s refugee agency also spoke out against the plan. “Refugees and asylum-seekers ... should not be deported to a country where their human rights might be at risk,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Malaysia spokesperson Yante Ismail said.
INDONESIA
Maids return to Malaysia
The country will resume sending domestic helpers to Malaysia by the end of this year, marking an end to a more than two-year ban, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Thursday. A flood of complaints of mistreatment of domestic workers in Malaysia prompted Jakarta in June 2009 to ban maids from taking up jobs in the neighboring country. Malaysia is one of Asia’s largest importers of labor such as domestic workers. The women often work for as little as 400 ringgit (US$130) a month and have no laws governing their working conditions. Both countries had a new agreement in May which was designed to end abuse and torture of workers. Under the new deal, workers will be allowed to retain their passports instead of giving them to their employers, and will be guaranteed the right to communicate with relatives and Indonesian authorities. Rather than working seven days a week as was common in the past, the women would be entitled to one day off or cash compensation in lieu.
UNITED STATES
Suspected assassin indicted
A man accused of plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador has been indicted in New York. The five-count indictment against Manssor Arbabsiar was returned on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan. The charges are the same as those contained in an Oct. 11 criminal complaint. An arraignment was scheduled for Monday. Authorities say the 56-year-old US citizen with an Iranian passport has admitted his role in a US$1.5 million plot to kill the envoy at a restaurant by setting off explosives. President Barack Obama’s administration has accused agents of the Iranian government of being involved in the plot. The press attache at Iran’s mission to the UN has called the accusation “baseless.”
UNITED STATES
Cop cleared of abuse
A district court judge on Thursday acquitted a police sergeant of a charge he stomped on a dying, mentally disabled man who was gunned down on a New Orleans bridge after Hurricane Katrina, overturning parts of a jury verdict that convicted five current or former officers of civil rights violations. Judge Kurt Engelhardt upheld the majority of the officers’ convictions, but he concluded jurors did not hear sufficient evidence to convict Sergeant Kenneth Bowen of stomping on 40-year-old Ronald Madison after another officer shot and fatally wounded the man in the 2005 storm’s aftermath. Engelhardt also found insufficient evidence to convict Bowen and three other officers of conspiring to falsely prosecute shooting victim Jose Holmes. US Attorney Jim Letten said his office was reviewing Engelhardt’s ruling and was weighing options, including whether to appeal.
GUATEMALA
Government apologizes
The government officially apologized on Thursday to the family of ex-president Jacobo Arbenz, who was ousted 57 years ago in a CIA-backed coup in one of the opening acts of the Cold War. “As head of state, as constitutional president of the republic and as the military’s commander in chief, I hereby wish to request the forgiveness of the Arbenz Vilanova family for this great crime,” President Alvaro Colom said during a ceremony at the former government headquarters. “It was above all a crime against him, his wife, his family, but also a historic crime for Guatemala. This day changed Guatemala and we still haven’t recovered,” he said, speaking before Jacobo Arbenz Vilanova, the only surviving son of the former president. Arbenz led a popularly elected government that ran afoul of Washington with reforms counter to the interests of the United Fruit Co, a US multinational with extensive holdings in Guatemala. He was overthrown on June 27, 1954, in an invasion led by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas that was engineered by the CIA.
CHILE
Protesters occupy senate
Dozens of youths disrupted a senate committee hearing on Thursday, then occupied the senate office building for eight hours to demand a referendum on how to resolve the nation’s social problems, especially education. The activists left on Thursday night after getting a promise from opposition legislators that they would introduce a bill requiring a binding referendum, although political leaders on both right and left have said congress itself must decide the dispute. The occupation of the senate headquarters in Santiago came just hours after riot police evicted protesters from galleries at the congress building in the port city of Valparaiso.
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