NEW ZEALAND
Anti-royalist’s plan foiled
Police said they caught a man before he had a chance to throw a bucket of horse manure over Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, during a royal visit to the country. Castislav “Sam” Bacanov, 76, pleaded not guilty in an Auckland court yesterday to planning a crime in a public place. He has agreed under his bail conditions to keep at least 500m from the royal couple. The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall are on a six-day tour of the country, the last leg of their Pacific tour marking Queen Elizabeth II’s 60th Jubilee. Police spokeswoman Noreen Hegarty said officers arrested Bacanov, a known anti-royalist, on Monday near a downtown Auckland venue where Charles and Camilla were due to appear. She said the royal couple had not yet arrived at the outdoor venue and were never in any danger. Bacanov is due to appear in court again on Nov. 27.
INDONESIA
PETA hunts elephant killers
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) yesterday offered a US$1,000 reward for information on the killing of three critically endangered Sumatran elephants near palm oil plantations. The carcasses of three female elephants, including a year-old calf, were found rotting at the weekend in the jungle on Sumatra Island outside the Tesso Nilo National Park. Park chief Kupin Simbolon said on Monday the elephants had likely been poisoned in revenge after plantation workers’ huts were destroyed in a recent stampede. The animal rights group offered the reward for information “leading to the arrest and conviction” of the killers. “These cowardly killers need to be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” PETA Asia vice president Jason Baker said in a statement. “If poisoned, these elephants endured a slow and agonizing death.”
MALAYSIA
‘Holy’ window moved
A church is taking possession of a hospital window that has attracted hundreds of people who believe it bears an image of the Virgin Mary. Prayerful crowds of Roman Catholics have gathered outside the Sime Darby Medical Center in a suburb near Kuala Lumpur since last weekend after an image believed to resemble the Virgin Mary was spotted on the hospital’s seventh-floor window. Reverend Simon Labrooy of the suburb’s Church of St Thomas More said he met with hospital officials and agreed that the crowd could affect medical emergency services. He said in a statement late on Monday that the hospital glass panel would be moved to a church and tested by theologians and religious authorities.
ZIMBABWE
Officials ‘stealing’ diamonds
Diamonds worth at least US$2 billion have been stolen by President Robert Mugabe’s ruling elite, international dealers and criminals, in “perhaps the biggest single plunder of diamonds the world has seen since Cecil Rhodes,” a watchdog has claimed. Revenue that could have revived the country’s ailing economy has been channelled into a “parallel government” of police and military officers and government officials loyal to Mugabe, according to Partnership Africa Canada (PAC). The Marange fields in the east were discovered in 2006 and are one of the world’s biggest diamond deposits, but funds from diamond sales have not reached the state treasury, with evidence showing millions have gone to Mugabe’s inner circle, a PAC report published on Monday said.
‘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