THAILAND
Norwegian held for murder
Police say they have arrested a Norwegian businessman who admitted killing his Thai girlfriend and keeping her rotting body hidden in his villa for two-and-a-half years. Police Colonel Sirisak Wasasiri yesterday said that 50-year-old Stein Havard Dokset confessed late on Wednesday to killing the woman by pushing her down the staircase at his home on Phuket. The woman had been reported missing in late 2009. Sirisak said police, acting on an anonymous tip, discovered the woman’s body in a trash can in Dokset’s bathroom. He faces charges of murder, hiding evidence and illegal possession of a weapon.
PHILIPPINES
Thousands of cops lack guns
More than 27,000 police officers — about a fifth of the national force — do not have government-issued guns, prompting many of them to rely on their own guns to battle criminals and insurgents, officials said on Wednesday. Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said his department has released US$5.7 million to purchase 12,696 9mm pistols and arm less than half of the police officers and recruits without government-provided arms. National police spokesman Agrimero Cruz Jr said the problem has forced many police officers to use their own firearms to battle criminals and insurgents. Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo blamed the problem on money lost to corruption and wrong priorities by past officials, who appropriated funds for such projects as renovating a swimming pool in a police camp.
PHILIPPINES
Rebels suspend leaders
The nation’s largest Muslim rebel group says it has suspended three key commanders involved in a clash in October last year that killed 19 soldiers and endangered a years long ceasefire. Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebel leader Mohagher Iqbal yesterday said the three commanders on Basilan Island were suspended for three months after an investigation by Malaysian-led peace monitors found they violated a ceasefire accord with the government. Iqbal says the probe showed government troops also violated the truce.
PHILIPPINES
Court rejects festival appeal
The High Court has dismissed a bid by gay rights activists to challenge a police ban on an arts festival. Organizers of the “Sexual Independence” festival had hoped to overturn a ban imposed last year on the event, which would have featured musical performances, talks on sexuality issues and a poster exhibition. Police ordered activists to scrap the event after Muslim organizations said it would disrupt public order. High Court Judge Rohana Yusuf ruled yesterday that police were empowered to declare the ban. Festival organizers said they would appeal.
VIETNAM
Hanoi protests to China
Hanoi has protested to China for reportedly assaulting its fishermen in disputed waters in the South China Sea. Yesterday’s Vietnam News quotes Foreign Ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi as saying Chinese action “seriously infringed” upon national sovereignty and “gravely threatened lives and property.” The newspaper says China used force to threaten 11 Vietnamese fishermen on a vessel on Wednesday last week and prevented them from entering the Paracel Islands (西沙群島) to avoid a storm. The paper also says Chinese forces were reported to have assaulted the fishermen and tried to take their property.
RUSSIA
Putin trails in sex poll
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is the third-most sexually appealing man in the country, after the Bulgarian-born pop star Filipp Kirkorov and a stripper who goes by the name of Tarzan, a poll showed. Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who is running against Putin in the presidential election on Sunday, came in fourth in the Levada Center national Sex Symbol Survey, which the Moscow-based research group posted on its Web site yesterday. The results were based on a survey of 1,601 people 18 years old and above from Feb. 17 to 20.
SOUTH AFRICA
Australian found guilty
A court has convicted an Australian of attempted murder for trying to hire a hit-man to kill the father of a woman he had become obsessed with, local media said yesterday. Shumsheer Singh Ghumman, 32, was arrested in Cape Town in January on charges of throwing a gasoline bomb at the home of Hannah Rhind’s parents in the suburb of Clifton. Police said Ghumman, a London-based accountant, met Rhind in Britain in 2009 and became friends with the South African, before she accused him of stalking her. Ghumman was later convicted of harassment in a British court. The Times newspaper said Ghumman had also posed as a journalist and asked a West Cape News editor to put him in touch with local gangsters for a story he was working on. The editor of the West Cape News put Ghumman in touch with a man named Alfred Yalezo, whom Ghumman offered to pay 10,000 rand (US$1,300) to murder Rhind’s father, the Times said. Yalezo instead told the Rhind family, who called the police.
NIGERIA
Pirate attack foiled
Pirates attacked a ship off the country’s coast for the second time in as many days, but the attackers were thwarted in the latest incident by a quick-acting crew, an international maritime watchdog said yesterday. The pirates opened fire on Wednesday on a Nigerian-owned oil tanker about 80 nautical miles (148.2km) off Port Harcourt, said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur. Choong said the ship managed to escape after crew members enforced anti-piracy measures and increased vessel speed. The attack came a day after pirates robbed a cargo ship anchored at Port Harcourt and kidnapped at least two crew members. This brought to eight attacks this year off the coast of Nigeria alone, and there are believed to be many other cases that have gone unreported, Choong said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Warrant for Russian suspect
London has issued an international arrest warrant for a new Russian suspect in the murder of former agent turned dissident Alexander Litvinenko, Interfax news agency quoted a security source as saying. It has already demanded the extradition from Russia of former agent Andrei Lugovoi on suspicion of murdering Litvinenko in London 2006, a request snubbed by Moscow in a row that has severely hurt bilateral relations. Britain has now issued an order for the arrest of businessman Dmitry Kovtun, who had previously been linked to the case as he had met Litvinenko in London, Interfax quoted a Russian security source as saying. “On the basis of the warrant, the Russian citizen should be arrested by the authorities in the country where he is currently located,” the source said. However, the source added that Russia had so far received “no approach from London about Kovtun.”
UNITED STATES
US warns on Iran attack
The White House warned on Wednesday that any military action against Iran would create “greater instability” that could threaten the safety of Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq. The warning came days before a planned meeting between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Any military action in that region threatens greater instability in the region,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said. Israel has given mixed messages in recent weeks on the possibility it might attack Iran to halt its controversial nuclear development program. Iran “borders both Afghanistan and Iraq,” Carney said during his daily press briefing. “We have civilian personnel in Iraq. We have military personnel, as well as civilians, in Afghanistan.” So far, the US has no conclusive evidence the Iranians are building a nuclear weapon, he said.
UNITED STATES
Judge sorry for racist e-mail
A senior judge has apologized after sending an e-mail containing a racist joke about President Barack Obama that equated African Americans with dogs, a newspaper reported. Richard Cebull, chief US district judge in Montana, said he sent the e-mail to a small group of friends because he is opposed to Obama. He acknowledged it was racist, but denied being racist himself. Cebull sent the message from his court e-mail address on Feb. 20, the Great Falls Tribune reported. The judge admitted that he sent the e-mail to six “old buddies.”
UNITED STATES
Terror suspect pleads guilty
Majid Khan, a protege of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, on Wednesday pleaded guilty at a Guantanamo military tribunal under a deal with US authorities that will require him to testify against his mentor and other terror suspects. Khan, a Pakistani national, admitted conspiracy, murder and attempted murder in violation of the laws of war, and material support for terrorism and espionage in a landmark case that analysts said could speed trials against those linked to the 2001 attacks, which prompted the US-led “war on terror.” Khan, 32, denied ever meeting or speaking with late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but admitted to taking part in a “conspiracy” in Pakistan, Thailand and Indonesia.
CUBA
Castro’s sister dies at 88
The elder sister of President Raul Castro has died in Havana at the age of 88, a sibling who lives in Miami said. Angela Castro, who was the oldest of seven Castro siblings, died on Tuesday after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, her sister, Juanita Castro, told Cafe Fuerte, a Miami-based Web site closely watched by the Cuban exile community. “She had been sick in a clinic for some time,” Juanita Castro said. “She never left Cuba and I never saw her after I left the country. It’s the tragedy that all divided Cuban families have suffered.” Angela Castro never held a high-profile position in the government led by her brothers Fidel and Raul.
UNITED STATES
Aussie indicted over exports
A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted an Australian man for plotting to export components for missiles, drones and torpedoes to Iran in violation of a trade embargo, the Department of Justice said. David Levick, 50, and his company ICM Components, based in Thorleigh, Australia, were each charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the US and to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Arms Export Control Act.
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
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number