JAPAN
Police nab ‘haiku killer’
Police yesterday arrested a man who left a haiku poem when he disappeared after five people were murdered in a tiny mountain village. Investigators found Kosei Homi, 63, dressed only in his underwear early yesterday in mountains near the hamlet in western Yamaguchi Prefecture, police and reports said. The manhunt began on Sunday after officers found three corpses inside two burned-out houses. They subsequently uncovered two more bodies in separate homes. The five victims, who all appeared to have been battered to death, were in their 70s or 80s and represented a third of the population of the hamlet, local reports said. Police had found a “haiku” poem stuck to the window of Homi’s house, which read: “Setting a fire — smoke gives delight — to a country fellow.” Investigators had found a cellphone registered to Homi and a shirt and a pair of pants, believed to be his, in mountains nearby on Thursday, as they homed in on the fugitive, Jiji press said.
CHINA
Landslides bury people
At least nine people were buried and four missing after landslides hit a province where at least 95 were killed this week by earthquakes, state media reported yesterday. Two separate landslides hit Gansu following heavy rains, Xinhua news agency said. The northwestern province was hit by twin earthquakes on Monday that Xinhua reported left at least 95 people dead and another 1,461 injured. The recent landslides came as the northwest continued to be battered by heavy rains and flooding. Floods in Shaanxi Province have killed 14 people since July 18, Xinhua said. Since rainstorms began last Thursday 189,000 people have been relocated, the agency cited local officials as saying.
CHINA
Man stabs five to death
Police say a lone knifeman stabbed five people to death and wounded three others in the latest in a string of rampage attacks. Henan provincial police said yesterday that Ding Jinhua killed three people in the village of Dazhuzhuang. The 38-year-old furniture salesman then drove to a nearby furniture market where he killed a shop owner and taxi driver, and drove off in the cab.
THAILAND
Two arrested for ‘ice’
Two Indian men have been arrested and charged with trafficking crystal methamphetamine worth an estimated US$1.4 million, a customs official said yesterday. The suspects were detained on Thursday on the holiday island of Samui after flying in from Chennai in southern India via Singapore. Custom authorities said they had found 12.3kg of methamphetamine hydrochloride, known as “ice,” in their luggage.
UNITED STATES
Researcher arrested
A University of Pittsburgh medical researcher accused of poisoning his neurologist wife with a supplement she apparently thought would help them have a baby has been arrested. Police say Robert Ferrante, 64, laced an energy supplement with cyanide and gave it to Autumn Klein hours after they exchanged text messages about how the supplement could help them conceive. Klein, chief of women’s neurology at the university’s medical center, died on April 20 after suddenly falling ill at home on April 17. Blood drawn from Klein had high levels of acid so doctors had it tested for cyanide as a precaution. Those tests revealed a lethal level of cyanide, but only after Klein had been cremated at her husband’s insistence, police said. Defense attorney William Difenderfer has said Ferrante denies involvement in his wife’s death. Two days before his wife became ill he purchased more than 227g of cyanide.
RUSSIA
Pussy Riot appeal rejected
A court yesterday rejected an appeal by a member of the punk band Pussy Riot against a previous ruling that denied her an early release. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has served a year and a half out of her two-year prison sentence and was appealing for parole. She was convicted, along with two other band members, of hooliganism following a punk performance against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral last year. Representatives of the penal colony where Tolokonnikova is serving her sentence told the court that she should not be released because she never repented. She said that she would never plead guilty because she did the right thing.
UNITED STATES
More Weiner sexting
New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner said that he had traded racy messages with as many as three women since similar sexting forced him out of Congress. A new poll said the fresh scandal was hurting his campaign. The Democrat also said he supposed he had had sexually charged exchanges with a total of six to 10 women; previously he put the number at six. The scandal got seamier on Thursday when gossip Web site The Dirty posted an unredacted crotch shot that it said Weiner sent to a woman last year.
UNITED STATES
New oldest man named
A 112-year-old self-taught musician, coal miner and gin rummy aficionado from western New York is the world’s oldest man, according to Guinness World Records. Salustiano Sanchez-Blazquez became the world’s oldest man when Jiroemon Kimura died on June 12 at age 116. Guinness says the world’s oldest person is a woman, 115-year-old Misao Okawa of Japan. However, a South African woman says she was born in 1894, which would make her 119.
SWEDEN
Tattoo photo too revealing
A politician who wanted to show his new tattoo to followers on a social media site accidentally revealed far more than he intended. Lars Ohly, former leader of the Left Party, posted a picture of the English soccer club Liverpool’s liver bird tattooed on his leg. What he failed to notice was that his genitals were visible in the background. Ohly quickly removed the picture after posting it on Wednesday on Instagram, but could not stop the avalanche of comments in social media. He said he would be more careful when he posts online.
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