CHINA
Murder suspect extradited
A suspected drug gangster accused of orchestrating the murders of 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River last year has been extradited from Laos, Xinhua news agency said. Naw Kham was flown on a chartered plane dispatched by Chinese authorities on Thursday morning, it said. State broadcasters aired his arrival live. Nine Thai soldiers previously surrendered in the case, but will not be extradited. Thai authorities are still investigating, and police will go to China this month to interview the victims’ families. The sailors were on two Chinese cargo ships hijacked in October in Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle region, which is notorious for the production and trafficking of heroin and other illicit drugs.
NEW ZEALAND
Churchgoer bites man’s ear
A churchgoer became so enraged that the dishes had not been done following a Sunday service that she ripped off part of a fellow parishioner’s earlobe, the Manawatu Standard reported yesterday. The attack occurred during a meeting of church members who have known each other for about 10 years, the newspaper said. Ateliana Lei Malu, 52, became agitated after mentioning the dishes had not been done and then pulled the man to the ground, scratched his face, gave him a black eye and pulled his hair, the report said. When parishioners pulled Malu off the victim, she lashed out again, ripping off part of his earlobe. Malu pleaded guilty in court to a charge of assault and will be sentenced next month.
NEW ZEALAND
PM’s stalker jailed
A man who threatened to kill Prime Minister John Key by blowing him up as he dined in a restaurant was yesterday jailed for 13 months, media reports said. Keith William Mabey, 22, who suffers from schizophrenia, had told a psychologist he had imagined killing Key ever since he became prime minister in 2009. Mabey said he knew which restaurant Key and his wife dined at every Thursday and planned to walk in and blow him up. He said he had researched bombmaking on the Internet and had successfully carried out tests using gunpowder and a detonator.
AUSTRALIA
‘Dead’ man recovering
A man pronounced dead by paramedics following a car crash, who then left the scene, was discharged from hospital after making a remarkable recovery, the Age newspaper said yesterday. Daniel Huf, 30, was trapped upside down in the wreckage of a Porsche in a Melbourne suburb and was declared dead after being treated at the scene on April 1. He was reportedly left in the car for up to an hour as police began their investigations until emergency services officials began removing what they thought was a corpse and discovered a feeble pulse. The Age said Huf left hospital on Thursday. Ambulance Victoria said it was investigating the bungle, with the two paramedics involved traumatized by their mistake.
AUSTRALIA
Vanuatu expels officers
A dozen federal police officers were expelled from Vanuatu on Thursday in a diplomatic row over the arrest of the prime minister’s private secretary. Australia’s foreign office said it was “disappointed and concerned” at what it called “retaliation” for the detention of Clarence Marae at Sydney airport on April 27. Marae was held while traveling with Vanuatuan Prime Minister Sato Kilman, en route to Israel for a state visit, and was charged with conspiracy to defraud. Reports said the arrest was linked to an alleged international tax scam.
AFGHANISTAN
Roadside blasts kill eight
Two roadside bombs in the southern province of Helmand killed eight people on Thursday, including seven members of one family, an official said. In the first incident a bomb tore through a minivan traveling on a dirt road in Musa Qala District, killing seven family members, including four women and two children, provincial police spokesman Farid Farhang said. “Moments later when a vehicle of local police forces arrived at the scene to help the victims the second bomb hit their vehicle, killing one police[man],” he said.
AFGHANISTAN
Eleven killed at checkpoint
Taliban militants dressed in police uniforms blew themselves up after being caught trying to sneak through a checkpoint on Thursday in Paktika Province’s Yayakhil District, provincial police chief Dawlit Khan Zadran said. The men refused to surrender, triggering an hour-long gunbattle during which two attackers were fatally shot and the remaining four detonated vests rigged with explosives, Zadran said. Two civilians and three policemen were killed in the blasts, and another three police officers were wounded. Zadran said the men were on their way to attack a district government office.
KENYA
UK man faces terror charges
The trial of a British man who faces terrorism charges has started in the coastal town of Mombasa. The suspect, who is identified as Jermain Jhon Grant in court documents, sat silent on Thursday as the prosecution’s first witness told a magistrate’s court about his first meeting with the suspect. Grant faces charges stemming from what police say was his role in a failed terrorist plot in the country late last year. Grant is already serving a jail term for being in the country illegally. The nation has been on high alert for possible terrorist strikes after sending its troops into Somalia in October last year.
LIBYA
Envoy worries about Libya
Top UN envoy Ian Martin said there are positive signs that the country is moving toward democracy, but longstanding tensions have escalated into armed conflicts, detainees are still being tortured and there is rising discontent among former revolutionary fighters. Martin told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that less than seven months after the end of former leader Muammar Qaddafi’s 42-year dictatorship, Libyans are increasingly exercising their freedom of speech and have a strong desire to be consulted on national issues and a determination to hold their leaders accountable. However, the interim political system is strained, the government is still trying to impose security and the rule of law, and there is “a sense of instability in an already fragile system.”
ISRAEL
Gaza rocket lands in south
A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in the south of the country causing no casualties, a military spokeswoman said on Thursday. “A rocket fired from Gaza landed last night in the Shaar Hanegev area. There was no damage or casualties,” she said. Militants in Gaza have fired more than 300 rockets into the nation since the beginning of this year. Air raids launched in response to the rocket attacks have left 25 people dead, 14 of them members of the Islamic Jihad militant group. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, maintains a tacit truce with its neighbor, but other groups in the territory occasionally fire rockets into the Jewish state.
COLOMBIA
Beijing signs pipeline deal
The country said it has signed agreements with China to study the joint financing and construction of a pipeline that would send at least 300,000 barrels of oil daily to the nation’s Pacific coast for export. Colombian Mining and Energy Minister Mauricio Cardenas said that two memorandums of understanding were signed on Wednesday during Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’ visit in Beijing. Cardenas said by phone from China that one agreement is with China’s development bank while the other involves the bank, the nation’s state-run oil company Ecopetrol and the Chinese conglomerate Sinochem. Cardenas says there is no exclusivity to the deals.
PERU
Ministers quit after deaths
The nation’s defense and interior ministers have quit amid complaints from lawmakers about incompetence in the fight against Shining Path rebels. Thursday’s resignations by Defense Minister Alberto Otarola and Interior Minister Daniel Lozada come as President Ollanta Humala is on a trip to South Korea and Japan. Both were criticized for their handling of the aftermath of last month’s kidnapping by rebels of 36 construction workers in the southeastern jungle. The workers were later released but nine security force members were killed. Many were outraged when the father of a slain police officer had to personally retrieve his slain son’s body from the jungle nearly three weeks after the officer went missing.
BRAZIL
Tourist has huge drinks bill
Police said a US tourist was detained for several hours after trying to leave Rio de Janeiro without paying his hotel bill of more than US$7,000, including US$3,000 for caipirinhas — Brazil’s national cocktail of rum, lime, sugar and ice. Police inspector Marcio Mendonca said 63-year-old Robert Scott from Murietta, California, was detained on Wednesday night at Rio de Janeiro’s International Airport. He said Scott claimed he could not pay the hotel bill because his credit card had been cloned. Mendonca says Scott’s relatives in the US paid his bill after police contacted them and that he was due to be allowed to fly home on Thursday night. The US consulate said it had no comment.
BRAZIL
‘Suicide statues’ spark calls
The human-form silhouettes stand high above the streets of central Sao Paulo, causing gasps and shouts of “Jump. Jump.” What local media are calling “suicide statues” forms the first South American exhibition for British artist Antony Gormley. Firefighters have been called to the scene this week after bystanders mistaking the 31 life-size body cast sculptures perched at the edges of tall buildings as despondent people ready to jump. The same thing happened when Gormley had a similar exhibit in New York last year. Police were called several times then. Gormley’s sculptures are due to be exhibited in Brazil through July, heading to rooftops in Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia as well. Through Gormley’s 40 year career he has explored the relation of the human form to large-scale settings.
VENEZUELA
Julio Iglesias robbed
Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias was robbed of his passport and cash when thieves raided his hotel room while he performed in the country, police and media reports said on Thursday. A police official said the theft occurred late on Sunday night during a concert in Valencia and was being investigated.
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