INDIA
Metal rod used in attack
Police have arrested a man for allegedly shoving a metal rod down the throat of a 22-year-old woman during an attempted rape at her home in New Delhi on Monday night, detectives said yesterday. “The accused tried to rape the girl and when she resisted his move, he shoved a rod inside her mouth,” said Ajay Chaudhry, a senior police officer investigating the case. “We have arrested the accused. A case of assault and attempt to murder has been registered.” The victim underwent surgery, but is stable now, the officer added. Police say the suspect had called round at the house on the pretext of collecting the monthly electricity charge and then tried to rape the woman on finding her alone.
MALAYSIA
Reward to be offered
The government will offer a 50,000 ringgit (US$16,000) reward for information on 14 rare Borneo pygmy elephants found dead last month if it is confirmed they were poisoned. Masidi Manjun, tourism, culture and environment minister for the state of Sabah, yesterdaysaid authorities hoped the reward would help them get new leads. Eight elephants were found dead near an oil palm plantation almost two weeks ago and more bodies were later found decomposing in the Gunung Rara forest reserve. Officials are trying to save a three-month-old calf, poignantly photographed nuzzling its dead mother and now staying in a wildlife park.
AUSTRALIA
PM warns of ‘rivers of grog’
Prime Minister Julia Gillard yesterday warned that “rivers of grog” were beginning to flow again in Aboriginal communities as she unveiled a mixed report on tackling indigenous disadvantage. Gillard took aim at local governments rolling back strict alcohol bans on Aborigines in the nation’s fifth annual “Closing the Gap” address on improving indigenous welfare, employment and education. She said progress was being made on several important measures, including halving infant mortality for Aboriginal Australians, but warned that literacy and numeracy had slipped and called for a review of state alcohol policies. “We’re hearing worrying reports about the rise in admissions to the emergency department at Alice Springs Hospital due to alcohol-related accidents and abuse,” she told parliament. “People are witnessing more alcohol-related violence.”
INDIA
Poachers using AK-47s
An official says poachers using AK-47 assault rifles to hunt rare, one-horned rhinos in Assam might be tied to the region’s insurgent groups. Assam state police chief Jayanta Narayan Choudhury says the use of AK-47s suggests the involvement of rebels or former insurgents trying to cash in on the huge demand for rhino horns in China and Southeast Asia. The poachers used AK-47s to kill nearly a half-dozen rhinos in or around Kaziranga National Park in the past month, Choudhury said yesterday.
VENEZUELA
Mystery check explained
Iranian Ambassador Hojattolah Soltani said a check worth about US$70 million, found by German authorities in the luggage of Iran’s former central bank chief, was going to be used by an Iranian firm building public housing in Venezuela. Soltani told Globovision TV station on Tuesday that the check for 300 million Venezuelan bolivars was to be used for the expenses of the Kayson Co, a Tehran-based construction business that is building thousands of homes for the Caracas government.
UNITED KINGDOM
Saudi prince to go home
A gay Saudi prince jailed for life for murdering his servant is to serve the rest of his sentence in his home country, a government source said on Tuesday. Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz Bin Nasir, a grandson of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah II, was jailed in 2010 for killing Bandar Abdullah Abdulaziz in a London hotel after subjecting him to a “sadistic” campaign of violence and sexual abuse. The source confirmed that British Justice Secretary Chris Grayling had approved the 36-year-old prince’s transfer to a jail in Saudi Arabia.
UNITED STATES
Prison guard charged
A federal prison guard was charged on Tuesday with sexually abusing a convicted cop killer whose child she is carrying, and she had an affair with a second inmate while pregnant, prosecutors said. A visibly pregnant Nancy Gonzalez, 29, appeared briefly in court before a federal judge in Brooklyn, before being released on bail. She faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. The woman, who worked the night shift at the Brooklyn Metro Detention Center in New York, was accused of having a four-month affair with Ronell Wilson that ended in August last year. Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2003 murder of two New York police officers, but a federal appeals court tossed out the death sentence in 2010 and he is awaiting his sentence before a new jury. Gonzalez began her affair with the other inmate in September last year.
MEXICO
Gunmen rape six women
A gang of masked gunmen broke into a beach bungalow and raped six Spanish women in Acapulco, officials said. The attackers used phone cables and bikini straps to tie up seven Spanish men and a Mexican woman who were also in the rental house near the Barra Vieja beach as they assaulted the Spanish women for two hours early on Monday. Acapulco Mayor Luis Walton Aburto caused a stir when he told reporters that the crime was “very unfortunate, but it happens everywhere in the world.”
DENMARK
Writer thwarts gunman
A prominent writer who heads a controversial group that claims free speech is under threat from Islam escaped an attempt on his life in Copenhagen on Tuesday, police said. Historian Lars Hedegaard was able to fend off the attack after the gunman misfired and was unharmed, police said in a statement. The incident happened when Hedegaard, 70, opened his front door to a man pretending to be delivering a package and wearing a jacket showing the logo of the Danish postal service. The attacker “fired a shot with his gun aimed at the victim’s head,” but he missed, the statement said. A struggle then ensued between the two men and the attacker fled the scene, it added.
RUSSIA
Partying in the gulag
Millions of people died in Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s gulag, but the 75th anniversary of the founding of one of the notorious forced-labor camps was cause for celebration for some. Russian news portals reported on Tuesday that local officials and prison wardens threw a party last week honoring the Usolsky camp in the Urals, with music and dancing, and speeches by former camp guards. The camp was founded in 1938. Usolsky held from 10,000 to 30,000 prisoners at any given time, including those convicted of “counter-revolutionary activity” and other political crimes. More than 16 percent of prisoners died of malnutrition and overwork.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
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