THAILAND
Oil spill reaches resort
Crude oil that leaked from a pipeline in the Gulf of Thailand over the weekend has reached a tourist resort, pipeline operator PTT Global Chemical said yesterday. About 50,000 liters of crude oil poured into the sea on Saturday about 20km off the coast of Rayong, southeast of Bangkok. “An oil slick has reached Ao Prao beach on Koh Samet island,” PTT Global, which estimates that about 5,000 liters remain to be cleaned up, said in a statement. “This should be the last oil slick that will come to shore. It is stuck in one particular corner of the shore close to some rocks.” Koh Samet, known for its white sandy beaches, is thronged by local and foreign tourists, and is home to several high-end and budget resorts.
HONG KONG
‘Meth’ smugglers arrested
Two women in possession of more than a dozen kilograms of crystal methamphetamine were arrested on Sunday at the airport, authorities said yesterday. The women, sisters aged 27 and 31, were carrying 14.5kg of “ice,” said a customs official, who withheld their nationality. The drugs, worth HK$10.9 million (US$1.4 million), were found concealed inside false compartments of three suitcases carrying men’s clothing, Customs Drug Investigation head Hui Wai-ming told reporters. “The weight of the suitcase was a bit abnormal,” Hui said, adding that the drugs could have been sold for more than two times the Hong Kong price in the Philippines. Manufacturing and trafficking dangerous drugs carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and a fine of HK$5 million.
CHINA
Knifeman kills three: police
A man stabbed three passersby to death yesterday in Shenzhen, police said, the latest in a series of killing sprees in the country. The man, identified only by his surname He, attacked “several” people on a street in the city, police said on a verified Sina Weibo account. Three people were killed and three wounded, they said, adding they were investigating his motives. The wounded were being treated in hospital. He, 41, from Jieyang in Guangdong Province, was subdued by officers who arrived at the scene three minutes after the first reports were received, and was taken to hospital after being wounded himself, police said. On Friday, 11 nursing home patients burned to death in the northeast after one of them set the facility on fire in a row over money, media reports said. On Thursday, a man knifed five people to death and wounded another three in Henan Province over land and business disputes.
INDIA
Princess wins US$$3.3bn
A court has ruled that the daughters of a late maharaja should inherit his 200 billion rupee (US$3.3 billion) estate because his will was forged, ending a 21-year legal battle, reports say. A magistrate in the northwestern city of Chandigarh ruled last Thursday that the will of the Maharaja of Faridkot had been faked to award his fortune to a trust managed by his servants and lawyers. Neither his wife, mother, nor daughters were named as beneficiaries of his assets, which included forts, a palace, vintage cars and prime property in the capital, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Vikas Jain, a lawyer representing Amrit Kaur, one of his two daughters, announced the verdict on Sunday, saying that the will had been declared as “fictitious” and “void.” The fortune will be shared with his other daughter.
MEXICO
Vice admiral slain
Gunmen ambushed and killed one of the nation’s highest ranking navy officials and the officer escorting him on Sunday in the state of Michoacan, authorities said. Two other people were injured. The state prosecutors’ office said the attack on Vice Admiral Carlos Miguel Salazar happened on a dirt road near the town of Churintzio. Salazar was the top naval commander in the Pacific coastal state of Jalisco. A spokesman for Michoacan attorney general’s office said Salazar’s driver apparently took the dirt road because the main highway had been closed. In between two villages, men armed with high-powered rifles opened fire on the car. Helicopters of the army, navy and federal police, and more than 200 security officers and emergency workers converged on the scene after the shooting.
LIBYA
Benghazi blasts injure 13
Two powerful explosions went off near a courthouse in Benghazi late on Sunday, wounding 13 people, security and medical sources said. The blasts came a day after 1,117 inmates escaped during a prison riot in the city. Mohamed Hijazi, spokesman for the security services in Benghazi, said two suitcase bombs had caused the blasts. They went off as people gathered to break the Ramadan fast. Local residents said nearby buildings were badly damaged in the blast. At least one soldier was killed in overnight fighting in the city between an armed group and military special forces, a security official said yesterday.
ITALY
At least 31 migrants drown
Thirty-one people are believed to have died while trying to reach the island of Lampedusa, the latest tragedy to occur on the perilous sea crossing between north Africa and Europe. Survivors of the journey from Libya reportedly told authorities that the rubber dinghy in which they were traveling capsized on Friday evening, and more than half of its 53 passengers drowned. They said nine of the dead were women, the Ansa news agency reported. The 22 people rescued were from a variety of west African countries including Nigeria, Benin, Gambia and Senegal.
ITALY
Tuxedoed man robs shops
A thief decided to carry out his crime in style by holding up two shops at gunpoint wearing an elegant blue tuxedo, local newspapers reported on Sunday. The man, who was about 30 years old, according to witnesses, committed the heists on Saturday before making his escape on a scooter with a booty of just under 1,000 euros ($1,300), the reports said. Employees at the Eurospin and Lidl shops in the Rome suburb of Torre Spaccata said the thief looked very elegant, but the outfit was a poor disguise, especially considering the current heat wave in Rome. “We were robbed about a month ago as well. The check-out girl knew something was up this time because the man was wearing a tuxedo and a scarf, which is not the sort of thing you wear when it’s 40 degrees in the shade,” an employee at Lidl told Il Tempo daily.
UNITED STATES
Turtle gets Facebook page
A two-headed turtle hatched at the San Antonio Zoo on June 18 has become so popular that she has her own Facebook page. Zoo officials say the Texas cooter, named after the leading characters in the 1991 Oscar-winning film Thelma and Louise, has been doing well. Spokeswoman Debbie Rios-Vanskike said the turtle eats and swims, and added that the two heads — named Louise Left and Thelma Right — get along.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the