JAPAN
Candidates gear up for poll
Candidates were yesterday making final appeals to voters ahead of today’s upper house elections that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition is expected to easily win. With the economy picking up, many people are giving credit to the prime minister’s economic policies, dubbed “Abenomics,” that have lifted stocks and eased pressure on exporters by weakening the yen. Polls indicate that the election will give Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior coalition partner New Komeito a majority of seats in the 242-seat upper house, where half the seats are up for grabs. That would give the LDP-Komeito bloc control of both chambers of parliament, making it easier to pass legislation.
MALAYSIA
Indonesians rescued
Authorities said on Friday that 27 Indonesians have been rescued after their boat overturned, but one person died and seven others are still missing. Maritime Enforcement Agency official Mustapa Kamal Abas said in a statement that the boat was heading to Indonesia’s Batam Island on Thursday when its engine failed and it overturned after being hit by waves. The people on the boat were working illegally in Malaysia and thought to be returning home for Ramadan. Mustapa said that 28 people, including three women and an infant, hung on to the boat for 12 hours before being rescued by a tanker off Malaysia’s southern Johor state. He said that one of the women died shortly after they were rescued.
HONG KONG
Baby elephant tusks seized
More than 1,000 ivory tusks, mainly from baby elephants, were seized by customs in their biggest haul in three years, officials said on Friday. The tusks, which weigh more than 2 tonnes and are worth about US$2.3 million, were discovered at the city’s main port at the Kwai Chung terminal in a cargo container from Togo. It was headed for China and the bags of tusks were hidden beneath planks of wood. “We profiled a container from Togo, Africa, for cargo examination. First, we found irregularities at an X-ray check. Then, we opened the container and discovered the tusks of different sizes,” said Wong Wai-hung, a customs commander. It was the biggest ivory seizure in the southern Chinese city since 2010.
CAMBODIA
Opposition offices targeted
A gunman fired a shot early yesterday into one of the main offices of the opposition party, a day after the exiled leader of the opposition, Sam Rainsy, returned home to an exuberant welcome by supporters ahead of this month’s general elections. The office in the capital, Phnom Penh, was closed for the night and nobody was injured in the attack. “This attack was orchestrated by those in power,” opposition party spokesman Yim Sovann said. He said security guards were sleeping when the shot shattered a window at about 3am. Police were sent to investigate, Phnom Penh police chief Lieutenant General Chhun Sovann said.
PHILIPPINES
Seven people die in gunfight
Seven people were killed when communist insurgents attacked a rural army outpost on the southern island of Mindanao, the military said yesterday. Six rebels and a pro-government militiaman were killed, while another militiaman was wounded during the five-hour gunbattle on Friday, the military said, adding that the attack only ended after they deployed helicopter gunships.
UNITED STATES
Woman falls from coaster
A woman riding a roller coaster at a Six Flags amusement park in North Texas died on Friday, and witnesses say she fell from a ride that is billed as the tallest steel-hybrid coaster in the world. The accident happened on Friday evening at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington. Park spokeswoman Sharon Parker confirmed that a woman died while riding the Texas Giant roller coaster, but did not specify how she was killed. However, witnesses told local media outlets that the woman fell. “She goes up like this. Then when it drops to come down, that’s when it [the safety bar] released and she just tumbled,” Carmen Brown said. Brown said she was waiting in line to get on the ride when the accident happened. Six Flags expressed sadness over the death and said it was temporarily closing the section of the park around the accident site.
UNITED STATES
Kanye, paparazzi scuffle
Police were investigating a scuffle on Friday between rapper Kanye West and a cameraman at Los Angeles International Airport, where paparazzi have been known to spend time in hopes of snapping shots of celebrities. Numerous witnesses were interviewed about the afternoon incident to compile a report for detectives to investigate, LAX Police Sergeant Steve Savala said. TMZ posted a video of the tussle, showing West being thronged by cameras while trying to get into a white Mercedes Benz waiting curbside. As flashbulbs illuminate his face, West accuses the paparazzi of trying to provoke him “so I have to pay you, like, US$250,000.” He then lunges at a photographer’s camera and tries to wrestle it away. West has had similar run-ins with paparazzi at the Los Angeles airport before, trading barbs with photographers who follow his every move.
UNITED STATES
Elderly men held captive
Four elderly men were held captive for possibly as long as a decade in a Texas home where they were forced to hand over their benefit checks, police said on Friday. Three of the men were so badly malnourished that they were taken to hospital. Authorities are still trying to determine whether three mentally challenged women — who lived in much better conditions in the home — were also coerced. One man, who did not live in the Houston home, has been taken into custody for questioning, but has not yet been charged. The men were living in a converted garage, where they were forced to sleep on a linoleum floor and had no access to a bathroom, Houston police spokesman Kese Smith said. “They were enticed to that location with the promise of beer and cigarettes and not allowed to leave and forced to turn over checks,” Smith said.
MEXICO
‘Z-40’ in maximum security
The leader of the brutal Zetas drug cartel was transferred to a maximum security prison on Friday, four days after marines catpured him in the north of the country, an official said. Miguel Angel Trevino, alias “Z-40,” had been held in a facility of the federal attorney general’s office in Mexico City since his capture on Monday. The official from the attorney general’s office, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trevino was taken to one of the country’s four top security prisons, but the exact location was confidential. After Trevino’s arrest near Nuevo Laredo, he was accused of drug trafficking, organized crime, murder, torture and money laundering. When marines stopped his pick-up truck and detained him with two associates before dawn on a dirt road, they found US$2 million and eight heavy weapons.
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