THAILAND
Boat carrying tourists sinks
A speed boat carrying more than two dozen South Korean tourists sank yesterday as it returned from an island near Thailand’s popular seaside resort town of Pattaya. All the passengers were rescued and one was injured, police said. The boat started to sink about 100m from a pier in Pattaya because of a leak in its floor, police colonel Thammanoon Mankong said. He said the 27 South Korean tourists were rescued by authorities and crew from nearby boats. One of the tourists was slightly injured and taken to a hospital. The boat’s crew members also were rescued.
SOUTH AFRICA
Foundation awards Tutu
A billionaire’s foundation says it will give anti-apartheid hero Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa an award for “speaking truth to power” that comes with a US$1 million grant. In announcing the one-off award on Thursday, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation said Tutu “is and has throughout his life been one of Africa’s great voices for justice, freedom, democracy and responsible, responsive government.” Tutu was an anti-apartheid leader during the most desperate years of the struggle against racist rule. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has continued to be outspoken on world events, sharply criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and China’s treatment of Tibetans.
AUSTRALIA
Murdered woman buried
A private funeral was held yesterday for murdered Irish woman Jill Meagher, whose disappearance gripped the nation and led to an outpouring of grief and anger. The 29-year-old, who worked for state broadcaster ABC, vanished in the early hours of Sept. 22 as she walked home from a bar just a few blocks from her Melbourne home. Her body was found five days later in a shallow grave in a rural area about 50km from the city. Adrian Ernest Bayley, 41, has been charged with Meagher’s rape and murder. Meagher moved to Australia from Ireland with her husband three years ago.
SOUTH KOREA
Film stirs bitter memories
A film based on the memoir of a pro-democracy activist who was brutally tortured in the 1980s by South Korea’s military rulers is provoking discussion about the country’s not-so-distant authoritative past and its influence on the presidential election. National Security premieres today at the Busan International Film Festival. It tells the story of Kim Geun-tae, who endured 22 days of torture in a notorious Seoul interrogation room because of alleged links to North Korea and a plot to overthrow South Korea’s military regime. The film is due for nationwide release next month, just a month before the election.
UNITED KINGDOM
India attack suspects seized
Police have arrested three people in an investigation into the attempted murder of an Indian army general stabbed last week near London’s busy Oxford Street. Lieutenant General Kuldeep Singh Brar, who helped lead a deadly 1984 raid in India on the holiest Sikh shrine, was set upon by four men and slashed in the neck as he walked with his wife shopping on Sunday. Brar, 78, was treated in a London hospital and released. He told Indian media the attack was an assassination attempt, linking it to his role in the Indian forces’ storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar to flush out Sikh militants. More than 1,000 people were killed in that operation. Scotland Yard said on Thursday it had arrested a 33-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. It said another man in his 30s also was arrested. The force said all three suspects were being questioned at a London police station.
GUATEMALA
Energy protest claims 2 lives
At least two people were killed and dozens more injured in a clash between security forces and protesters opposed to high energy prices. President Otto Perez Molina said on Thursday that two army vehicles were carrying troops to support police when they encountered a blockade set up by protesters on a highway in the west of the country. Molina said civilians in a truck in front of the army vehicles opened fire. He said the soldiers were not armed and promised to clarify what happened. Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla said the president had suspended an order to evict the protesters from the highway. Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Erick Escobedo said seven soldiers were hurt. Authorities said 34 people were admitted to hospitals. Local media reports gave a higher death toll.
MEXICO
Hunt for killers stepped up
The government is deploying troops and federal police to find suspects in the killing of the son of a former national party leader that has caused commotion among the country’s political circles. Coahuila State Prosecutor Homero Ramos announced on Thursday that officials hope to quickly solve the murder of Jose Eduardo Moreira. His father Humberto is a former governor of the northern state and former head of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. The son was found shot dead on Wednesday night in a rural area near Ciudad Acuna, across the border from Del Rio, Texas. He worked for the Coahuila state government led now by his uncle, who won local elections last year.
UNITED KINGDOM
Murdoch firm in legal deal
A journalist fired in the wake of the phone hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s News International has settled with the newspaper company on undisclosed terms. Matt Nixson sued his former employer after he was dismissed from Murdoch’s The Sun newspaper in July last year. At the time, News International was reeling from revelations that its journalists systematically eavesdropped on private voicemail messages in order to score scoops, a practice whose exposure shook the country’s establishment and has led to dozens of arrests and prosecutions. Nixson was never caught up in the police investigation, and the 38-year-old’s dismissal angered many in the media, particularly after Murdoch promised to keep arrested Sun journalists on the paper’s payroll and foot their legal fees. News International confirmed the settlement, but did not elaborate.
‘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