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.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not