INDONESIA
Drug sentence reduced
Schapelle Corby’s lawyer says the Australian could be released from prison in Indonesia next month after her sentence was reduced. Corby was convicted in 2005 of smuggling marijuana into Bali and sentenced to 20 years’ in prison, including time spent awaiting trial. In May, Indonesia’s president reduced her sentence by five years. Friday’s six-month reduction means she has now served two thirds of her sentence and is eligible for parole. Lawyer Iskandar Nawing says they are arranging necessary guarantees from the Australian Consulate and Corby’s family to apply for parole next month. He says he expects Corby to be released in late September. The 34-year-old Corby was among 58,595 prisoners across Indonesia whose jail terms have been reduced to mark Independence Day. More than 2,200 were freed.
PAKISTAN
Car bomber kills 5 troops
A suicide car bomber has killed five security troops at a road checkpoint in the country’s volatile southwest, Pakistani spokesman Murtaza Baig said yesterday. The attacker detonated his explosives yesterday after he was stopped at the checkpoint in a Quetta suburb, he said. The killed troops were members of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps. Baluchistan province and its capital, Quetta, have been the scene of an insurgency by Baluch nationalists who are demanding greater rights and share from the income generated from gas and minerals extracted from the province. Various Baluch groups are blamed for attacks on the province’s security forces and are suspected of targeting other ethnic groups in the region. Islamist Taliban militants and the extremist group Lashker-e-Jhangvi are also active in the province.
VIETNAM
Typhoon kills four
At least four people died as Typhoon Kai-Tak barrelled across northern Vietnam bringing high winds and floods to several areas including the capital, Hanoi, reports said yesterday.
The typhoon, which made landfall late on Friday, was downgraded to a tropical depression yesterday but continued to dump water on already flooded parts of the country. More than 11,000 boats, including several hundred used by tourists at the UNESCO world heritage site Halong Bay, were ordered to stay close to the shore. The Vietnamese army put 20,000 soldiers backed by helicopters, rescue boats and canoes on standby to handle any incidents. Kai-Tak swept across Philippines’ main island of Luzon, dumping heavy rain on the Cagayan basin and other areas in the north, killing four people.
PAKISTAN
US drone kills five
A US drone attack yesterday killed at least five militants in a remote Pakistani tribal town near the Afghanistan border, security officials said. The drone fired two missiles on a compound in Shuwedar village in the troubled North Waziristan region considered a stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked militants. Local intelligence officials confirmed the attack and casualties. The attack came as people in the deeply religious region celebrated the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr, they said. Attacks by unmanned US aircraft are deeply unpopular in Pakistan, which says they violate its sovereignty and fan anti-US sentiment, but US officials are said to believe the attacks are too important to give up.
UNITED STATES
Teacher guilty in sex case
A former Texas high school teacher was convicted on Friday after having sex with five 18-year-old students at her home. It took the jury less than an hour to conclude that Brittni Nicole Colleps, 28, of Arlington, was guilty of 16 counts of having an inappropriate relationship between a student and teacher. The second-degree felony is punishable by two to 20 years in prison per count. The former Kennedale High School English teacher had sex with the students at her home over two months last year, authorities said.
UNITED STATES
Pit bull, owner attack bride
A bride is recovering from injuries after she was attacked by a pit bull and its owner at her wedding reception. Brittany Cortez says the alleged attacker, Joel Nevarez, is a troubled childhood friend who was invited to her reception at a Denver home. She said that he let the dog drag her around “like a rag doll” and punched her in the face and head with brass knuckles at the party early on Sunday last week. Cortez thinks the attack was motivated by jealousy. Nevarez is wanted for suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. Police think he may have fled to Mexico, where his mother lives.
CANADA
Police find severed hands
Police on Friday discovered a pair of severed hands, after earlier this week finding a head and foot from what is believed to be a woman’s dismembered body in a Toronto area river. “We believe they all belong to the same person,” a police spokesman said, adding the remains were several weeks old. Hikers stumbled upon the foot floating in the Credit River west of Toronto on Wednesday. “Without a cause of death, we can’t call it homicide, but certainly foul play — there’s definitely something amiss,” acting inspector Randy Cowan of Peel Regional Police said. The case brings to mind the “Canadian Psycho,” a male ex-porn star suspected of killing a Chinese student with an ice pick in Montreal in May. However, police have dismissed any link to that case.
UNITED STATES
Clown had Jobs’ stolen iPad
Families waiting for San Francisco’s cable cars on a recent morning could not help but notice Kenny the Clown, who wore a curly rainbow wig as he twisted brightly colored balloons into animal shapes for visitors, blasting Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal from an iPad at his feet. Little did the clown know that the tablet doubling as his stereo would turn out to have been stolen from the home of the late Steve Jobs. “The thing that is embarrassing to me is I’m a huge fan of Steve Jobs,” said Kenneth Kahn, 47, a professional entertainer who police say unwittingly received a silver 64GB iPad pilfered from the home of the Apple co-founder last month. Kahn’s friend Kariem McFarlin, 35, of Alameda was arrested on suspicion of breaking into Jobs’ Palo Alto residence on Aug. 2.
UNITED STATES
Pot rally held in Seattle
Tens of thousands of people descended on a waterfront park in Seattle on Friday for the opening of what is billed as the nation’s largest marijuana rally — an event that has a pressing political edge this year as Washington state’s voters consider whether to legalize the fun use of pot for adults. Colorado, Oregon and Washington already have medical marijuana laws and all three also have legalization measures on the November ballot. Washington’s would allow sales of up to 28g of dried marijuana at state-licensed stores.
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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