SOUTH KOREA
Military exercise scheduled
The government will stage a regular military exercise near a disputed island this month amid a renewed territorial claim by Japan, the defense ministry said yesterday. The island is called Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima by Japan. The twice-yearly defensive drill will be held in the middle of this month, a ministry spokesman said. Yonhap news agency said the drill grouping the navy, army, air force and coast guard would involve some 10 warships plus F-15K fighter jets and other weaponry. The scenario is to repel a foreign ship in waters near Dokdo, it quoted a military source as saying.
PHILIPPINES
Warships, choppers sought
The government plans to spend about 15 billion pesos (US$358.6 million) in acquiring two warships from Italy and 10 helicopters from Eurocopter SAS as part of its military upgrade, defense officials said in a forum yesterday in Manila. The plan also includes possible purchase of 12 fighter jets from South Korea, Defense Undersecretary Fernando Manalo said. The two ships will cost about 11.7 billion pesos and may be delivered by November, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said in the same forum. Discussions are ongoing for 10 helicopters worth about 3.2 billion pesos, Manalo said. The government wants Congress to approve a five-year plan that will set aside 75 billion pesos annually for defense upgrade, Manalo said.
PHILIPPINES
Aquino backs contraceptives
President Benigno Aquino III has the support of Congress on a bill that would give free contraceptives to the poor, his spokesman Ricky Carandang said in Manila yesterday. The House of Representatives will vote on Tuesday whether to continue or terminate debates on the so-called responsible parenthood bill. Catholic bishops are scheduled to hold a demonstration tomorrow against the bill.
AUSTRALIA
Mother pleads for mercy
The mother of an Australian woman facing the death penalty for trafficking drugs in Malaysia begged for her daughter to be sent home alive yesterday, protesting that she was innocent. Emma Louise L’Aiguille, 34, was charged in a Kuala Lumpur court this week with trafficking methamphetamines after she was arrested allegedly in possession of 1kg of the drug two weeks ago. “I felt shocked and numb when I was told,” Innes told News Ltd newspapers of learning that her daughter faced death by hanging if convicted. “I don’t want her to be [hanged], and the thought of that just terrifies me.” L’Aiguille is alleged to have been driving the car the drugs were found in, and her lawyers said there had been three male passengers from Nigeria inside.
VIETNAM
Mother of blogger kills self
The government yesterday said it was investigating the self-immolation of the mother of a blogger facing trial for propaganda against the state — after the US voiced “deep concern” over the death. Dang Thi Kim Lieng set herself on fire on Monday and “died on the way to hospital,” foreign ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said, confirming earlier information given by people close to the family. “The case is now under investigation,” he added. Lieng is the mother of Ta Phong Tan, a 43-year-old Catholic former policewoman who used her blog to denounce corruption and injustice in the legal system. Tan was arrested on Sept. 5 last year and has been held in detention since.
TURKEY
Botched birth kills woman
A woman died in childbirth after doctors delayed a Caesarean section following Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s announcement that he opposed the practice, Milliyet newspaper said. The woman’s family is suing the hospital, saying doctors tried to force the woman to deliver the child even after she fainted twice, the Istanbul-based newspaper said. The child was delivered by C-section after the woman fainted a third time, it said. The mother later died, while the child is in intensive care, it said. Erdogan said on May 26 that C-sections were part of a plan aimed at limiting the nation’s population growth, without explaining how. The government restricted the practice to cases of medical necessity in a law passed on July 12.
ENGLAND
Man held over biker’s death
London’s Metropolitan Police said a man arrested in relation to the death of a cyclist near the Olympic Park in east London has been released on bail. A double-decker bus carrying journalists at the London Olympics hit and killed the 28-year-old bicyclist on Wednesday night near the boundary of Olympic Park, the complex surrounding Olympic Stadium. Metropolitan Police said early yesterday that a man in his mid-60s who had been arrested at the scene on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving has been bailed to a date late this month. The accident happened near facilities for Paralympic athletes and the Olympic Velodrome. The police force has launched an investigation into what caused the collision.
SPAIN
Assange’s mom meets judge
Renowned judge Baltasar Garzon is traveling to Ecuador, where he will meet the mother of WikiLeaks frontman Julian Assange, who is currently holed up at the Ecuadoran embassy in London while seeking asylum. Garzon said on Wednesday he was acting as an international coordinator for Assange’s defense. He was to travel to Ecuador yesterday, but declined to specify who else he would meet there. Assange is fighting extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning about alleged sexual misconduct. He claims he is being persecuted politically for publishing secret US documents. Garzon gained fame for taking on international human rights cases in recent decades, but he was convicted of overstepping his jurisdiction in a domestic corruption probe this year and barred from the bench for 11 years. Garzon said Assange, whom he met in London on July 19, was not afraid of facing Swedish justice, but that Assange believes that “in the present circumstances the conditions for a fair trial do not exist.’’
BRAZIL
Chevron told to stop oil drill
A federal court has given Chevron Corp and driller Transocean Ltd 30 days to suspend all petroleum drilling and transportation operations in the country until the conclusion of investigations into two oil spills off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. The court said in a statement posted on Wednesday on its Web site each company would be fined 500 million reals (US$244 million) for each day they fail to comply with the suspension. About 586,738 liters of oil crude began seeping from cracks in the ocean floor at the site of a Chevron appraisal well in November. Two weeks later, the National Petroleum Agency said the seepage was under control, but in March, oil again started leaking and Chevron voluntarily suspended production in the field.
UNITED STATES
Amorous bull mounts man
A bull in the mood for love damaged an Arkansas sheriff’s patrol car when it tried to mount a man who was leading the animal across a yard. Authorities said on Wednesday that a Faulkner County sheriff’s deputy was responding to a call about a bull running loose when he saw the man slapping and trying to guide the bull. The Log Cabin Democrat reports that as the patrol car drew near, the animal reared up and pinned the man against the vehicle. According to the deputy’s report, the bull then “tried to mate with him.” The bull then lost interest and followed a truck down the road. The patrol car sustained minor damage, though no injuries were reported. The bull’s owner says it was the animal’s first escape.
HONDURAS
Finance minister resigns
Finance Minister Hector Guillen resigned on Wednesday, a day after his wife was arrested with the equivalent of more than US$57,600 in her vehicle. Local police stopped Dinora Arambury on Tuesday near Tegucigalpa as she was en route to the city of San Pedro Sula, about 161km north of Tegucigalpa. Arambury was arrested after police found the cash. Guillen, who was named finance minister in February, said the money his wife was transporting consisted of a loan that she planned to use to pay bills related to the bed business she owns in San Pedro Sula.
HONDURAS
Weapons to be confiscated
The government has voted to cancel most outstanding gun permits in Colon Province and confiscate weapons amid violent land ownership disputes. The measure seeks to combat arms trafficking and organized crime, but is also aimed at the conflict between squatters and owners of palm oil plantations in the Aguan Valley. Farmworkers in the valley have been demanding ownership of about 10,000 hectares since 2009. The dispute has led to about 64 killings since December 2009. The dead are mostly farmworkers, but include plantation employees and police officers. Congressional leader Rigoberto Chang Castillo said on Wednesday that a combined police and army force is being prepared for deployment to the area.
UNITED STATES
Airport back to normal
Operations are back to normal at San Antonio International Airport after a bomb threat temporarily cleared out the terminals. Airport spokesman Rich Johnson says no suspicious items were found in an intensive search on Wednesday aided by bomb-sniffing dogs. He says the “all-clear” was declared at about 5pm local time. The airport was shut down and its terminals evacuated after an unknown person called at about 2:30pm, saying three explosive packages had been left in the parking garage. About 2,000 passengers in the terminal were herded onto the tarmac for about one-and-a-half hours. Flights were not allowed to land and roads to and from the airport were closed.
PUERTO RICO
Cocaine found on boat
A US Coast Guard official says two Puerto Rican fishermen were caught with a large amount of cocaine as their boat took on water and sank near the island of Vieques. Captain Drew Pearson says a coast guard cutter was sent to intercept the vessel near the island off the east coast of Puerto Rico. They got there in time to search the boat, recovering 11 bales of cocaine. Officials said at a news conference on Wednesday that the 450kg had a street value of US$9 million.
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
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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