SOUTH AFRICA
Man eats love rival’s heart
A jealous former lover in Cape Town stabbed a rival, cut out his heart and ate it with a knife and fork, police and media reported yesterday. Officers were called to the gruesome scene at a house in Gugulethu Township by frantic neighbors, police spokesman Frederick van Wyk told the Cape Times. “On the scene they found a suspect, a Zimbabwean national, busy eating the heart of a human with a knife and fork,” he said. The woman at the center of the love triangle told police that her former lover had visited the house where she was living with current partner Mbuyiselo Manona and they chatted before he gave her money to buy liquor and she left. When she returned, she found that Manona had been stabbed, Van Wyk said. Neighbo+rs alerted by the commotion said they peered through the windows to see the ex-lover cutting out Manona’s heart and eating it. “The whole situation was crazy. We were shouting at him to stop, but he did not listen,” a neighbor said. “Even when the police got here ... the guys were scared to go in. They had to call for backup. You can’t really blame them — how do you go into a room with someone dripping another person’s blood out of his mouth?”
PAKISTAN
Musharraf travel ban lifted
A Karachi court yesterday ordered the government to lift a travel ban on former president Pervez Musharraf in 15 days’ time, said his lawyer, Farogh Naseem. The delayed execution of the order “will give time to the government to appeal in a superior court if they so desire,” he added. Musharraf, 70, has said he wants the travel ban lifted so he can visit his sick mother in Dubai, but many see that as a ruse to flee the country and avoid the litany of criminal cases against him dating back to his 1999 to 2008 rule. He faces several murder counts, as well as treason chargesfor imposing emergency rule in 2007, stoking tensions between civilian authorities and the powerful military. His exit from the country could help ease those tensions at a time when the government is fighting a resurgent Taliban.
THAILAND
Anti-junta activist faces jail
A prominent anti-coup activist faces up to 14 years in prison if convicted of inciting unrest, computer crimes and ignoring a summons by the junta, police said yesterday. Red Shirt leader Sombat Boonngamanong, who led a social media campaign to stage peaceful, but illegal rallies against the junta, is set to stand trial in a military court. Sombat was one of several hundred politicians, activists, academics and journalists called in by the junta following the May 22 coup. Those who came were detained at secret locations for up to a week and told to cease political activities. Sombat refused to turn himself in, instead posting a message on Facebook saying: “Catch me if you can.” While on the run he urged followers to stage peaceful protests, flashing the three-finger salute from The Hunger Games trilogy that has become a symbol of defiance against the junta. He was arrested a week ago.
NORTH KOREA
Kim rains on weather service
Leader Kim Jong-un has censured the Hydro-Meteorological Service for “incorrect” weather forecasts in a rare dressing down of a government body. Kim criticized the science in the agency’s observations and called for the use of modern equipment in the unusual rebuke, the Korean Central News Agency said on Tuesday. Accurate forecasts are needed to protect people’s “lives and properties” from disasters caused by “abnormal climatic phenomenon,” he said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of