FIJI
Ex-PM’s charges reduced
The High Court yesterday quashed money-laundering charges against former prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry, but he will still stand trial for allegedly breaching foreign exchange laws, reports said. Chaudhry, who served as prime minister from 1999 to 2000, faced 12 charges after allegedly giving false information to tax authorities about bank accounts in Australia. The court threw out five money-laundering charges after accepting an application from Chaudhry’s lawyer that it did not have jurisdiction over the foreign accounts, the Fiji Broadcasting Corp (FBC) reported. A further four counts of making false tax returns were dismissed because the three-year time limit under which the alleged offense could be prosecuted had expired, the Fijivillage news Web site reported. The FBC said Chaudhry still faced three counts of breaching foreign exchange laws for failing to declare the accounts to the Reserve Bank of Fiji, and that the case would be the subject of a pre-trial conference on Aug. 13.
NEPAL
UN condemns attacks
The UN has voiced “deep concern” over escalating violence against schools in the country by militants it said were endangering children’s lives and jeopardizing their right to education. Local media have blamed student wings of various political factions for destroying computers in a Kathmandu college and torching school buses in the capital, the southern district of Chitwan and the eastern city of Dharan. The UN’s head in Nepal, Robert Piper, urged government officials and politicians late on Tuesday to “ensure that children in Nepal are allowed to thrive, grow and be educated in an atmosphere free of violence and terror.” Piper said in a statement with UNICEF and UNESCO representatives Hanaa Singer and Axel Plathe that “while the incidents of the past weeks damaged school property, the most recent attacks on school buses, some with children still inside them, could have had disastrous consequences.”
SINGAPORE
Teens face jail for bus theft
Three teenagers are facing the prospect of up to seven years behind bars for allegedly stealing school buses to go on joyrides, the Straits Times reported yesterday. A police statement said the three boys, aged 15 to 17, were arrested on Monday after investigations showed they were the behind the theft of two school buses on an industrial estate. “In both cases, the doors of the buses were forced open and the keys which were left in the ignition were used to start the buses,” police said in a statement on their Web site. The daily said the boys had taken the buses to go joyriding, but police refused to confirm the reason. Both vehicles were later recovered. All three teenagers were charged with theft of a motor vehicle, which carries a maximum term of seven years in prison.
PHILIPPINES
Suspected killer arrested
Police officials said they had arrested a man who had confessed to killing his 68-year-old Belgian employer with an axe and then setting a fire to cover up the crime. Chief Superintendent Marcelo Garbo said the 29-year-old Filipino admitted he hit Steegmans Florent several times in the head with an axe at the Belgian’s Internet cafe in Bohol before setting the shop on fire. Garbo said the suspect is believed to have harbored a grudge against Florent and had acted alone in the murder and arson case on Monday. Firefighters who put out the blaze discovered Florent’s body inside the shop. The Belgian had a Filipino wife. His hometown was not immediately known.
GREECE
Army chief resigns: report
The army chief resigned yesterday, state television reported, hours before a defense council meeting called by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to evaluate the country’s top military brass. Lieutenant-general Constantinos Ziazias, 57, had been appointed by the previous socialist administration in November last year. The defense ministry and the army could not immediately comment on the report. New military chiefs are appointed in Greece every two or three years, but it is customary for a new administration to promote its own nominees once in power.
UNITED KINGDOM
Spanish judge joins Assange
WikiLeaks says it has hired Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon to lead the legal team representing the group and its editor-in-chief, Julian Assange. Garzon won global fame for aggressively taking on international human rights cases. He is best known for indicting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998. WikiLeaks said on Tuesday that Garzon recently met with Assange at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where Assange is holed up seeking asylum, to discuss a “new legal strategy.” Assange is currently fighting extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning about allegations of sexual misconduct.
UNITED STATES
Top priest jailed over abuse
The highest-ranking US church official to be convicted of covering up child sex allegations, Philadelphia Monsignor William Lynn, was sentenced to three to six years in prison on Tuesday. Lynn, who was secretary of the archdiocese from 1994 to 2001 and tasked with investigating abuse claims, was found guilty last month of one count of child endangerment. Lawyers had pushed for Lynn to be spared prison, but Judge Teresa Sarmina imposed close to the maximum sentence of three-and-a-half to seven years. “It was three to six years,” an official at the court in Philadelphia said, confirming the sentence. Lynn, 61, who took the witness stand for three days during his 10-week trial, was not charged with molesting children, but rather with covering up the crimes of priests who did.
UNITED STATES
Sherman Hemsley dies
Actor Sherman Hemsley, who rose to fame in the 1970s as the wise-cracking father in the hit sitcom The Jeffersons, has died at the age of 74, police said on Tuesday. Hemsley was found dead in his El Paso, Texas, home. No foul play is suspected, local police said in a statement. The Jeffersons was one of the longest-running US television shows with a predominantly black cast. It focused on how the family adjusted to its newfound affluence after the success of a dry cleaning business. The show explored serious themes such as race and class — and Hemsley’s character George Jefferson was a notable bigot who did not like the interracial marriage of his neighbors in the upscale Manhattan apartment.
ECUADOR
Gunmen rob gold mine
Heavily armed gunmen made off with a large heist — more than US$2 million of gold and silver — from a Canadian mining firm in southwestern Ecuador, the company said on Tuesday. The thieves secured 1,300 ounces of gold and another 4,000 ounces of silver from a warehouse at the Oro de Zaruma facility in Portovelo, El Oro Province, Dynasty Metals and Mining said.
‘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