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.
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