CHINA
Fines contravene rules
Authorities will crack down on penalties paid by families flouting strict family planning rules after a National Audit Office probe found 1.6 billion yuan (US$260 million) in fines had been levied illegally, state media reported. The audit office’s investigation of 45 counties in nine provinces and municipalities from 2009 to last year found 1.6 billion yuan in fines had been given out in contravention of the rules, newspapers said yesterday. The audit office found that problems included inaccurate reports of the number of extra children parents had, fees not successfully collected and officials handing out higher fines than they should have.
HONG KONG
Couple jailed for maid abuse
A couple were jailed on Wednesday for a shocking string of attacks on their Indonesian domestic helper, including burning her with an iron and beating her with a bike chain. Tai Chi-wai, 42, and his 41-year-old wife, Catherine Au, subjected their former maid, Kartika Puspitasari, to a two-year campaign of violence and humiliation, which also saw her assaulted with clothes hangers and a paper cutter, the court heard. Judge So Wai-tak, who described the attacks on Puspitasari as “repeated and continual,” sentenced Tai, a salesman by profession, to three years and three months in prison for one count each of assault causing actual bodily harm and wounding. Au, a hospital assistant, was given five-and-a-half years for two charges of assault causing actual bodily harm and four counts of wounding, three of them with intent. However, he found them not guilty of the charge of false imprisonment over the allegation that the couple left the maid without food or water after tying her to a chair and forcing her to wear a diaper while they went on a five-day vacation.
NEW ZEALAND
Canadian couple missing
Authorities were searching yesterday for a Canadian couple who were believed to have died when their rental van went over a cliff on a rugged road. Police said they were trying to recover the bodies of 25-year-old Connor Hayes and 24-year-old Joanna Lam off the Haast Pass road, which connects the west coast of the South Island to the rugged interior. The couple were last seen on Sept. 10 in stormy conditions. Parts of their wrecked rental van were found this week in the Haast River, about 80m below the road. Inspector John Canning said the chances they survived were “extremely remote.”
FRANCE
Child pageants banned
The senate voted 197-146 on Wednesday to ban beauty pageants for children under 16, in an effort to defend children’s — especially girls’ — rights. Anyone who enters a child into such a contest would face up to two years in prison and 30,000 euros (US$40,590) in fines, according to the measure. The legislation must go to the lower house of parliament for debate and another vote.
KOSOVO
EU police officer shot dead
An EU police officer in Kosovo was shot dead yesterday in a northern, mainly Serb region where tensions are rising over a fragile accord between the Balkan country and its former master Serbia. It appeared to mark the first fatality suffered by the EU mission, known as EULEX, since it was deployed in 2008 after majority-Albanian Kosovo declared independence from Serbia with the backing of the West. The officer, whom EULEX did not identify, was killed when two EU vehicles “came under fire from unknown persons” at around 7:30am near Zvecan, EULEX said in a statement. The vehicles were part of a regular morning rotation from a border crossing between Kosovo and Serbia, one of two main border gates in the north that have been the focus of previous clashes between ethnic Serbs and NATO peacekeepers.
BANGLADESH
One dead in protest clash
Local media yesterday reported that police had opened fire on supporters of the nation’s largest Islamic party, leaving one man dead. The party members were enforcing a general strike to protest a court ruling that a party leader should be executed for war crimes. The United News of Bangladesh said police started firing yesterday in the western district of Meherpur after opposition supporters attacked security officials and critically stabbed a police official. The report says up to 15 people were injured in the violence. Police could not be reached immediately for comment. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court sentenced Abdul Quader Mollah, a senior member of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, to death for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 independence war against Pakistan.
SRI LANKA
Editor flees after threats
A newspaper editor has fled the country following death threats and an armed attack on her home three weeks ago. Free Media Movement, a local media rights group, said Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema, the co-editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper, fled on Monday to a “North American country,” along with her journalist husband Romesh Abeywickrema and 12-year-old daughter. Five men held Mandana and her family at knifepoint and searched her Colombo home in a pre-dawn raid on Aug. 24, before police intervened. One intruder died after being shot by police and four others are being held in custody.
World News Quick Take
NEW ZEALAND
Canadian couple missing
Authorities were searching yesterday for a Canadian couple who were believed to have died when their rental van went over a cliff on a rugged road. Police said they were trying to recover the bodies of 25-year-old Connor Hayes and 24-year-old Joanna Lam off the Haast Pass road, which connects the west coast of the South Island to the rugged interior. The couple were last seen on Sept. 10 in stormy conditions. Parts of their wrecked rental van were found this week in the Haast River, about 80m below the road. Inspector John Canning said the chances they survived were “extremely remote.”
FRANCE
Child pageants banned
The senate voted 197-146 on Wednesday to ban beauty pageants for children under 16, in an effort to defend children’s — especially girls’ — rights. Anyone who enters a child into such a contest would face up to two years in prison and 30,000 euros (US$40,590) in fines, according to the measure. The legislation must go to the lower house of parliament for debate and another vote.
KOSOVO
EU police officer shot dead
An EU police officer in Kosovo was shot dead yesterday in a northern, mainly Serb region where tensions are rising over a fragile accord between the Balkan country and its former master Serbia. It appeared to mark the first fatality suffered by the EU mission, known as EULEX, since it was deployed in 2008 after majority-Albanian Kosovo declared independence from Serbia with the backing of the West. The officer, whom EULEX did not identify, was killed when two EU vehicles “came under fire from unknown persons” at around 7:30am near Zvecan, EULEX said in a statement. The vehicles were part of a regular morning rotation from a border crossing between Kosovo and Serbia, one of two main border gates in the north that have been the focus of previous clashes between ethnic Serbs and NATO peacekeepers.
BANGLADESH
One dead in protest clash
Local media yesterday reported that police had opened fire on supporters of the nation’s largest Islamic party, leaving one man dead. The party members were enforcing a general strike to protest a court ruling that a party leader should be executed for war crimes. The United News of Bangladesh said police started firing yesterday in the western district of Meherpur after opposition supporters attacked security officials and critically stabbed a police official. The report says up to 15 people were injured in the violence. Police could not be reached immediately for comment. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court sentenced Abdul Quader Mollah, a senior member of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, to death for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 independence war against Pakistan.
SRI LANKA
Editor flees after threats
A newspaper editor has fled the country following death threats and an armed attack on her home three weeks ago. Free Media Movement, a local media rights group, said Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema, the co-editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper, fled on Monday to a “North American country,” along with her journalist husband Romesh Abeywickrema and 12-year-old daughter. Five men held Mandana and her family at knifepoint and searched her Colombo home in a pre-dawn raid on Aug. 24, before police intervened. One intruder died after being shot by police and four others are being held in custody.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion