CHINA
Activist lawyer’s aide held
Police have taken away the aide of prominent lawyer Pu Zhiqiang (浦志強), who was detained last week in a government clampdown on activists ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, an attorney said yesterday. Pu’s aide, Qu Zhenhong, who is also his niece, was recently detained by Beijing police on suspicion of “illegally obtaining personal information,” said Zhang Sizhi (張思之), a veteran rights lawyer who is Pu’s attorney. Activists said police took two other people away in relation to the investigation into Pu, including an employee of leading Japanese newspaper, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The newspaper’s office in Tokyo said it was investigating the situation. The employee is not believed to be a Japanese journalist. Authorities placed Pu under criminal detention last week after he attended a forum on the June 4, 1989, crackdown on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. Several other dissidents who attended the forum were also detained and accused of “creating a disturbance,” a vague charge increasingly used against government critics. Also detained by police was Chen Guang (陳光), a former People’s Liberation Army soldier who was deployed in 1989 to help clear out the protesters. Chen later became a painter and publicly urged authorities to allow for unfettered discussions of the crackdown.
SINGAPORE
PAP hits back over video fail
The People’s Action Party (PAP) has defended a promotional video produced by its youth wing that went viral after being lambasted online for its amateurish quality and “robotic” feel. The five-minute YouTube video clip, titled “Re-ignite the Passion of Servant Leadership,” featured youth leaders of the long-ruling party espousing a series of motivational messages. Some appeared to be reading from a script placed on either side of the camera. One segment featured a woman and a man clad in the all-white party uniform holding miniature toy guitars, as others around them took turns to complete a sentence: “We must empower our members... to make a positive impact... to those around us.” In a statement, the party said the effort by the Young PAP was “genuine and sincere.” “We did not expect that our humble [raw and unpolished] in-house production would go viral like this,” it said on Facebook on Wednesday. The video continued to draw a steady stream of derision yesterday, with local comedian Hirzi Zulkiflie writing “And here kids, you find yourself a bunch of brainwashed young adults. They even sound like robots. Amazing,” on Facebook, while another user wrote: “Sad to see youth talking like parrots, reading script and with bad diction/pronunciation.”
AUSTRALIA
MH370 search put on hold
The hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean was put on hold yesterday after technical issues with a US Navy mini-submarine that require spare parts to be sent from Britain. The Joint Agency Coordination Agency, which is leading the search, said on Wednesday that the Bluefin-21 submersible lasted only two hours in the water this week before it had to be raised. The center blamed “communications problems” for the aborted mission and after a more thorough examination, announced that spare parts are needed before the sophisticated mini-sub can be used again. The jet vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board. It is believed to have crashed far off the country’s west coast after mysteriously diverting from its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing route. No wreckage has been found, despite a massive international search.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
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