PHILIPPINES
Police rescue US boy
Police say they have rescued a four-year-old US boy who was held for ransom for eight days and that five suspects have been arrested. Isagani Nerez, head of the police anti-crime unit, said yesterday that the boy was seized by three gunmen on Dec. 6 in Manila while traveling in a car with his Philippine mother. A ransom was paid three days later, but the kidnappers demanded more money before releasing the boy. Nerez said police feared the boy would be harmed and traced his location with the help of FBI agents to the kidnappers’ hideout in Prieto Diaz, Sorsogon province. On Wednesday, police stormed the site and rescued the boy unharmed. Nerez said the boy was in good health and reunited with his family.
SOUTH KOREA
‘Bunker-buster’ being made
The country is developing a bomb capable of penetrating North Korean bunkers or caves housing artillery pieces, a member of parliament’s defense committee said. An aide to lawmaker Song Young-sun quoted her as saying that the state-run Agency for Defense Development (ADD) launched a 6.2 billion won (US$5.35 million) project last year to develop the “bunker-buster.” “ADD is developing a bomb capable of penetrating 1.5m concrete walls with a view to completion by 2013,” Song was quoted as saying on Thursday. North Korea’s long-range artillery is often hidden in fortified caves and rolled out to fire shots before being rapidly pushed back. For this reason, troops were unable to retaliate effectively when the North shelled Yeonpyeong Island near the disputed Yellow Sea border in November last year. The ADD also plans to develop another bomb capable of penetrating 5m or 6m once the initial bunker-buster is completed, Chosun said.
CHINA
Christian Bale roughed up
Hollywood actor Christian Bale was roughed up by Chinese security guards as he attempted to visit a blind legal activist whose detention has sparked a domestic and international outcry, CNN reported yesterday. Bale, who plays crime-fighting superhero Batman, and a camera crew from CNN were jostled by men in plainclothes from Dongshigu Village in Shandong Province, where activist Chen Guangcheng (陳光誠) has been under house arrest for 15 months, according to a video released by CNN on its Web site. “Why can I not visit this man?” Bale asked several security officers, while they were pushing him.
ROMANIA
Record wish-list made
These days, Santa Claus could well feel nostalgic about the time when the country was communist and its governments frowned upon Christmas. Why? Because now that it is a democracy and capitalist, Romania is trying to set an all-time record for the world’s longest wish list for Father Christmas. And while the gifts children want are not all that surprising, the adult requests include everything from a new husband and a 365-day holiday to a Nobel prize. Many people in the country still believe in witchcraft, so few were surprised when managers at a shopping mall recently conducted a survey and found that many adults believe in Santa as much as children do. That prompted the Liberty Center mall in south Bucharest to begin trying to create the world’s longest wish-list letter to Santa, with handwritten requests from children and grown-ups. So far, the list is more than 60m long and growing by the day, with more than 1,000 requests. The letter to Santa Claus started on Dec. 1 and it will close on Dec. 23.
UNITED NATIONS
Qaddafi’s death dubious: ICC
The death of former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, who was captured and killed by rebels in October, might have been a war crime, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said on Thursday. “I think the way in which Mr Qaddafi was killed creates suspicions of ... war crimes,” ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told reporters. “I think that’s a very important issue. We are raising this concern to the national authorities and they are preparing a plan to have a comprehensive strategy to investigate all these crimes.” Under pressure from Western allies, Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) has promised to investigate how Qaddafi and his son Al-Mutassim Billah were killed. Cellphone footage showed both alive after their capture. The former Libyan leader was seen being mocked, beaten and abused before he died, in what NTC officials said was crossfire.
UNITED STATES
Shots fired at consulate
Police said they have arrested a man in relation to a Thursday afternoon shooting outside the Chinese consulate building in downtown Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times reported that a protester fired nine shots at a security guard at about 2:15pm, but only hit the building. The man, whose name wasn’t released, turned himself in about three hours later, officer Gregory Baek said. A group demonstrating against human rights abuses in China had gathered outside the consulate earlier on Thursday. One protester argued with a security guard after the guard allegedly took a sign and threw it in the trash. The protester then got into a vehicle and allegedly opened fire. The security guard, Cipriano Gutierrez, told KCAL-9 television that there were about 20 people inside the consulate when the man fired at the building. No injuries were reported.
ARGENTINA
Photographs show bodies
A human rights commission has provided a judge with photographs showing the bodies of dissidents believed to have been tossed out of airplanes during the country’s military dictatorship in the 1970s. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights gave the judge 130 photographs showing the tortured bodies of about 20 people found on the coast of Uruguay at the time. Human rights groups say victims received injections to put them to sleep before they were thrown from planes to their deaths. The images handed over on Thursday are considered key evidence in confirming the flights during the country’s dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. Human rights groups say about 30,000 people were killed under the regime.
UNITED STATES
Spector keeps fighting
A lawyer for imprisoned music legend Phil Spector is asking the Supreme Court to review his murder conviction, saying Spector’s constitutional rights were violated by the trial judge. Attorney Dennis Riordan contends that Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler became a witness for the prosecution by offering his opinion on an expert’s testimony. The filing was expected to reach the court yesterday. It cites the prosecution’s use of the judge’s videotaped comments and his picture during prosecution summations. The same arguments were made to state appellate justices, who refused to consider them because of a belated filing. They upheld Spector’s second-degree murder conviction in the death of actress Lana Clarkson. The California Supreme Court declined to review the case. Spector is serving 19 years to life in prison.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not