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.
‘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