JAPAN
Hostage-taker arrested
A man holding five people hostage at a bank was arrested yesterday after police stormed the building by breaking through a window, Kyodo News reported. All the hostages were freed. Koji Nagakubo, 32, took the hostages at knifepoint on Thursday at a bank in Aichi Prefecture, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s government. Japan dissolved parliament’s lower house this month for a Dec. 16 election that is likely to return the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party to power with a conservative former prime minister at the helm.
SYRIA
TV journalist shot dead
A state TV reporter was shot dead in the capital on Wednesday, the latest in a string of employees of pro-government media to be killed, the official SANA news agency reported. “An armed terrorist group assassinated journalist at the Public Authority for Radio and Television, Basel Tawfiq Yousef, in the Tadamun neighborhood of Damascus,” the news agency said. Tadamun has seen heavy fighting between rebels and troops since the outbreak of major violence in the capital in July. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the journalist was targeted because activists regarded him as a member of the militia supporters of President Bashar al-Assad.
MALAYSIA
Hanoi arrests 11 ‘pirates’
Vietnamese authorities have arrested 11 suspected pirates aboard a chemical tanker after the first such hijacking in the waters around Malaysia in years, the International Maritime Bureau said yesterday. The Malaysian-owned vessel lost communication on Saturday while on its way from Johor State to Sarawak State on Borneo Island, said Noel Choong, head of the bureau’s Kuala Lumpur-based piracy reporting center. After the center sent out an alert, Vietnamese marine authorities managed to intercept the tanker on Thursday, arresting 11 suspects. The tanker’s nine crew members had been released at sea on Wednesday by the pirates, said Choong, adding that the crew were all safe after being rescued by local fishermen.
JAPAN
Gold tree for US$4.2m
For those seeking a glow to their Christmas this year, a jewelry store in Tokyo has just the answer: a pure gold revolving “tree” covered in Disney characters. The tree-like ornament is made of 40kg of pure gold, standing about 2.4m high and 1.2m in diameter. It is decorated with pure gold plate silhouette cutouts of 50 popular Disney characters and draped with ribbons made of gold leaf. The price tag? A mere ¥350 million (US$4.2 million). For those with less ready cash, the store offers a smaller 25cm-high version that features 20 Disney characters for ¥2 million.
AUSTRALIA
Author Courtenay dies
Best-selling author Bryce Courtenay, who wrote about the struggles of life in Australia and South Africa, died at his home in Canberra, his publisher said yesterday, just two weeks after his latest novel was published. His death late on Thursday came less than three months after he told fans he had stomach cancer. He was 79. Known for his dedication to work and prolific output, often writing for 12 hours a day, Courtenay sold more than 20 million books.
new zealand
NZ in court against whaling
New Zealand has joined Australia in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a case against Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean, Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully said yesterday. McCully said the country would support Australia’s case in the ICJ after diplomatic initiatives have failed to halt Japanese whaling in the region. Australia filed a complaint against Japan at the ICJ in 2010, arguing that Japan was violating the “International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling” by killing whales for research purposes. In December 2010, the New Zealand government decided in principle to intervene in the case. Intervention is a procedure that enables a non-party to the case to put its legal views before the court.
UAE
Couple arrested for sex in taxi
A British woman and Irish man accused of engaging in sexual activities in a Dubai taxi were sentenced on Thursday to three months in prison and then deportation, their lawyer said. The case is the latest in which Westerners have fallen foul of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) decency laws, highlighting cultural differences as the UAE seeks a balance between maintaining its Muslim identity and catering for a vibrant tourism industry. The couple denied charges of “breach of honour with consent” and committing “an indecent act in a taxi” when they appeared in court last month.
Bahamas
Helicopter crash kills one
One American was killed and four people were injured after a helicopter crashed near an exclusive resort in the Bahamas on Thursday afternoon, according to local police. The helicopter went down at Baker’s Bay Golf and Ocean Club on Great Guana Cay in the Abacos island chain, according to Superintendent Noel Curry at the Marsh Harbour police station. The CBS television news Miami affiliate identified one of the survivors as Jeffrey Soffer, hotel heir and head of the Miami-based Turnberry Associates, one of the country’s leading property firms.
United States
Chain car crash kills two
Two people died and more than 80 were hurt when at least 140 vehicles collided on a Texas highway in dense fog, leaving trucks twisted on top of each other and authorities rushing to pull survivors from the wreckage. The Thursday morning crash happened on Interstate 10 about 128km east of Houston. Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Rod Carroll said 80 to 90 people were transported to hospitals, with 10 to 12 of those in serious to critical condition. He said 140 to 150 vehicles were involved in the pileup. Carroll said the fog was so thick that officers did not immediately realize they were dealing with multiple accidents. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, a crash on the eastbound side of the highway led to other accidents in a dangerous chain reaction.
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
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
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of