THAILAND
Man arrested for killing
Police have arrested a man allegedly involved in killing a Japanese man and robbing the cash he had won from a Cambodian casino. Police Major General Ronasilp Phusara said 28-year-old Cambodian Sok Na fled to Thailand last month and was found in Chachoengsao Province on Thursday. Sok Na and four other suspects are accused of killing 44-year-old Japanese tourist Kitakura Kosei in March and taking the cash he won at a casino in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. The winnings were worth about US$18,000. Ronasilp said Sok Na confessed he was riding a motorcycle for the gunman.
CHINA
Kindergarten head arrested
Police have arrested the head of a kindergarten and her associate over the deaths of two children from a rival school who ate yoghurt injected with rat poison, state media said yesterday. The five and six-year-old girls from northern Hebei Province died after eating the yoghurt which they had found in a bag on the side of the road while walking to school with their grandmother. The rival kindergarten director, Shi Haixia, and her associate Yang Wenming “admitted that they injected the poison into the yoghurt and left it on the street,” the China Daily said. “Their intention was to damage the reputation of the rival kindergarten.”
CHINA
Suicides over homework
Two teens committed suicide after “failing to complete homework assignments,” state-run media said yesterday, in an extreme case highlighting the immense pressure schoolchildren can face. A 15-year-old boy in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, who failed to finish homework from a three-day public holiday jumped to his death at about 11am on Thursday, the China Daily said. A 13-year-old boy in the same town got up at 4am on Thursday to complete holiday assignments, but was found hanged on a staircase at his home two hours later, it said. “In a suicide note, the boy said he loved his parents, felt sorry for them and hoped they could bring lilies, his favorite flower, to his grave,” it said.
SUDAN
Mine collapse kills scores
About 100 miners are estimated to have died inside a collapsed gold mine in the Darfur region and nine rescuers trying to free them are now trapped, a miner said yesterday. “Nine of the rescue team disappeared when the land collapsed around them yesterday [Thursday],” said the miner, who had visited the scene and asked to remain anonymous. On Monday the unlicensed desert gold mine began to collapse in Jebel Amir district, more than 200km from the North Darfur state capital El Fasher.
UNITED KINGDOM
Fake detectors lead to jail
A millionaire businessman who sold fake bomb detectors has been sentenced to 10 years in jail. James McCormick made an estimated £50 million (US$77.8 million) from the sales of his non-working detectors — which were based on a novelty golf ball finder — to countries including Iraq, Belgium and Saudi Arabia. Prosecutor Richard Whittam said the devices, which sold for up to £27,000 each, claimed to be able to find explosives and drugs under water and from the air. He said in fact they “lacked any grounding in science” and were no better than trying to detect explosives at random.
UNITED KINGDOM
Hall pleads guilty to assault
BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall has pleaded guilty to multiple assaults on young girls. Prosecutors said on Thursday that the 83-year-old sports broadcaster has pleaded guilty to 14 indecent assaults. Hall was arrested in January for questioning about alleged crimes committed between 1967 and 1986. He admitted guilt in court in mid-April but the information could not be made public for legal reasons until reporting restrictions on the case were lifted on Thursday. He earlier had denied wrongdoing. He will be sentenced on June 17. The corporation announced that Hall will “no longer be contracted by the BBC.”
UNITED STATES
Slayer guitarist passes
Heavy metal guitar legend Jeff Hanneman, 49, has died of liver failure, his band Slayer announced on Thursday. “Slayer is devastated to inform that their bandmate and brother ... passed away at about 11am this morning,” read a statement posted by the group on its Facebook page. Hanneman, who died at a hospital in Southern California, has been suffering since 2011 from necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh-eating disease that he is believed to have contracted from a spider bite, according to news reports. It is not known whether the illness played a role in his death. Hanneman was a founding member of Slayer, known for music that the group described as “punishing yet precise.”
UNITED STATES
Wildfire rages in California
A wildfire fanned by gusty winds raged along the fringes of Southern California communities on Thursday, forcing the evacuation of homes and a university while setting recreational vehicles ablaze. The blaze erupted during morning rush hour along a major highway about 80km northwest of Los Angeles. It was quickly spread by the winds, which also pushed other damaging blazes across the region. Flames quickly moved down slopes toward subdivisions, according to the Ventura County Fire Department. Fire officials said on Thursday afternoon that a hazardous materials team will deal with a store of highly toxic pesticides that caught fire at a Laguna Farms property, according to the Ventura County Star.
SPAIN
Police bust smuggling ring
Police say they have arrested 30 suspects who allegedly smuggled drugs into Spain through the southern coast using boats and jet skis. The Interior Ministry said on Thursday that the gang used fishing and recreational boats to carry drugs from Morocco to rendezvous points in the Mediterranean Sea. Once there, hashish was transferred to couriers on jet skis. The ministry said the organization laundered its profits using a catering business in the Sierra Nevada region.Police say they seized 488kg of hashish, 11 vehicles, three ships and two firearms worth an estimated 3.3 million euros (US$4.3 million).
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
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