THAILAND
PM-linked stocks plummet
Supporters of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra denounced opposition threats against businesses linked to her family yesterday ahead of a gathering of opposition leaders today. SC Asset’s share price has lost almost 10 percent since Wednesday and mobile handset distributor M-Link Asia Corp, also with links to the family, lost 12 percent. Other stocks affected include Shin Corp, founded by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra before he entered politics and its mobile affiliate Advanced Info Service Pcl (AIS) which yesterday sent an SMS to clients saying it no longer has any connection with the Shinawatra family. “AIS is not involved in politics and is not a pipeline for any side,” it said. Red Shirts leader Tida Tawornseth said today’s rally would consolidate plans to restore democracy after the opposition boycotted and disrupted elections this month, leaving the country paralyzed under a caretaker government.
JAPAN
Takeshima rally held
Japan held an annual rally yesterday marking Tokyo’s claim to a set of tiny islands controlled by South Korea, further fueling a long-standing territorial row between the neighbors. About 500 people gathered at the event in Shimane Prefecture, including a high-ranking Japanese government official, as well as local and national politicians, organizers said. Tokyo refers to the islands — which lie between the two countries — as Takeshima, while they are known as Dokdo in South Korea. Yoshitami Kameoka, a parliamentary secretary in Tokyo’s Cabinet Office, attended the event representing the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the organizers said.
INDIA
Rickshaw driver kills US wife
A rickshaw driver stabbed his US wife to death before setting himself ablaze, Agra police said yesterday, in a violent end to a whirlwind romance against in the backdrop of the Taj Mahal. Bunty Sharma, 32, killed Arian Willingar, 35, from Pennsylvania on a deserted roadside in the tourist city of Agra after the couple had a fight late on Thursday, senior police officer Shalabh Mathur said. Sharma later committed suicide by setting himself on fire, he said. The couple first met when Willingar visited Agra in July last year with her friends to see the Taj Mahal. Romance blossomed, they got married and began living together, but soon had a falling out over suspicions of infidelity. Sharma accused her “of smoking too much, talking to other men and not staying at home,” the Indian Express reported.
HONG KONG
Alligator coat snatched
A brazen shoplifter has taken an alligator-leather coat worth nearly HK$1 million (US$130,000) from a flagship Burberry store in one of the territory’s busiest shopping districts, Hong Kong police said on Friday. The pricey trench coat was on a mannequin and staff at the British brand’s shop in Tsim Sha Tsui discovered it was missing after they closed for business on Wednesday. “The person who reported the case discovered a leather jacket worth about HK$900,000 had disappeared. A review of the security cameras made staff believe it had been stolen,” police said in a statement. Police are looking for a strongly built male suspect aged between 30 and 40, it said. The Tsim Sha Tsui area is particularly popular with wealthy Chinese tourists willing to pay eye-popping prices for Western brands. The suspect is said to be a Chinese man and walked out of the three-story store unchallenged after removing the coat from the mannequin.
UNITED STATES
Chicago speeds gay unions
A federal judge says gay couples in Chicago do not have to wait until June to marry. Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman’s order, made on Friday, says there is no reason to delay same-sex marriages in Illinois, when the state’s law is set to take effect. Her finding applies only to Cook County. She says no opposition has been presented to the court and gay and lesbian couples “have already suffered from the denial of their fundamental right to marry.” Coleman already ruled in December last year that same-sex couples did not have to wait until June to marry if one or both partners had a life-threatening illness. Now that applies to all couples.
GUATEMALA
106 years jail for massacre
A court has convicted three Mexican men and six Guatemalans on murder and kidnapping charges for the 2011 massacre of 27 farmworkers and sentenced each to 106 years in prison. Judge Jeannette Valdez Rodas said on Friday that the evidence showed “a scene of terror” at the killing site at a ranch in the Peten region of the country. The killers are believed to have been working for Mexico’s Zetas drug cartel. They decapitated most of the victims, whose bodies were so badly mutilated that authorities originally put the death toll at 29, because there were so many body parts lying around. The court said the killings appear to have been a revenge attack on the ranch’s owner for allegedly having stolen a Zeta drug shipment.
CHILE
Pedophile defies Vatican
A prominent priest who was ordered by the Vatican to never again celebrate a public Mass as punishment for sexually abusing altar boys has been photographed apparently defying the order. Top church leaders confirmed Fernando Karadima’s act of insubordination on Friday and sent the case to the Vatican for investigation. The photographs were taken on Dec. 4 last year, but were only released this week by Juan Carlos Cruz, a journalist and one of Karadima’s victims. “It’s a very painful situation that shows that this priest continues to do as he pleases,” Cruz said. “It’s a slap in the face for the victims of his abuse. He should be in jail, but instead he’s still being protected by the church.” Victims say Karadima began abusing them at his residence at the Sacred Heart of Jesus church in Santiago about 20 years ago, when they were between 14 and 17 years old. The timing of the photographs’ release appeared aimed at embarrassing both the current and former archbishops of Santiago, who were in Rome for yesterday’s ceremony to name current Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati Andrello a cardinal.
UNITED STATES
Pot found in donated pants
An act of charity may end badly for one donor to a Pennsylvania Salvation Army outlet. Sugarcreek Borough police say they were called when workers found a large plastic bag of marijuana among some donated clothes. Borough Police Chief Matt Carlson told Derrick newspaper that he suspects the owner of the drugs has noticed them missing by now, if only because the bag contained a “substantial quantity” of pot. Police were working with store employees to determine who donated the clothes and when. Police say the drugs were found earlier this week. The chief says this is not the first time officers have investigated an unusual item among donated clothing saying, “we’ve had guns ... cash ... rings, and now, marijuana.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At 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
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese