CHINA
Premier Li heads to Britain
Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) yesterday left for a three-day visit to Britain, state media reported, in a trip aimed at further warming ties frozen more than a year ago over Tibet. Li departed Beijing yesterday afternoon, Xinhua news agency reported. In Britain, he is expected to have a rare audience with Queen Elizabeth II and hold a press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose May 2012 meeting with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama infuriated Beijing.In a piece in Britain’s Times newspaper, Li said that, in addition to bolstering economic ties, he hoped “to present the real China so as to change misperceptions and ease misgivings” and also “to draw on British perspectives and experience.”
SRI LANKA
Buddhist mob kills Muslims
A government minister says at least three Muslims were killed after a right-wing Buddhist group with alleged state backing clashed with Muslims in the southwest. Several shops were burned and some mosques attacked in the violence on Sunday night in the town of Aluthgama. Minister of Justice Rauf Hakeem accused the government of failing to protect Muslims from the mob led by monks from Bodu Bala Sena, or Buddhist Force, which has been engaged in an anti-Muslim campaign in recent years. A spokesman for the group could not be reached for comment. The group said representatives would meet with reporters later yesterday to clarify its position.
JAPAN
Man, 85, ‘stalks’ woman, 80
Police have arrested an 85-year-old man in the west of the country for allegedly stalking an 80-year-old woman he reportedly met when she shared a hospital room with his now-dead wife, they said yesterday. Takeo Nitta from Hashimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, allegedly left several telephone messages on the woman’s answerphone in November last year, saying: “I’m waiting outside your house. Let’s go out.” Officers warned him twice against harassment after receiving complaints from the woman, but his behaviour allegedly escalated and on May 2, he is said to have broken into her house, a police spokesman said. Nitta was arrested on June 10.
MALAYSIA
Two more abducted in Sabah
Police said gunmen seized two workers from a fish farm on Borneo Island early yesterday, the latest kidnapping in the area, despite increased security. It was the third kidnapping in Sabah State since April and highlighted persistent security threats in the state, which is a short boat ride from southern Philippines, home to Muslim militants and kidnap gangs. The English-language newspaper the Star said on its Web site that a 32-year-old local fish breeder and his Philippine worker were abducted by two Philippine gunmen from their farm and believed to have been taken to the southern Philippines in a speed boat. It said the worker managed to escape by jumping off the boat. This latest incident comes just shortly after the government secured the release of a Chinese tourist and a Philippine resort worker abducted by Philippine gunmen from a Sabah resort in April. A fish farm manager from Sabah is still being held hostage by suspected insurgents after he was abducted last month from Sabah and taken to the southern Philippines. In November last year, suspected Philippine militants shot and killed a Taiwanese tourist and kidnapped his female companion from a resort in Sabah. The woman was released a month later.
ISRAEL
Troops crackdown on Hamas
Troops yesterday killed a Palestinian and arrested more than 40 overnight, including the parliament speaker, in a massive crackdown on Hamas, whom police accuse of kidnapping three teenagers. With the manhunt for the missing youths in its fourth day, military forces were concentrating their focus on the southern West Bank city of Hebron and the surrounding area, home to about 663,000 Palestinians. The army says more than 150 Palestinians have been arrested in the search for the three youngsters authorities say were kidnapped by Hamas militants from a settlement bloc in the southern West Bank on Thursday last week.
UNITED STATES
Shooter sentenced to death
A jury in Memphis, Tennessee, on Sunday sentenced a man to death for killing his girlfriend and her parents in a shooting rampage in a home more than two years ago. Jurors deliberated for two hours before handing down the death sentence for Sedrick Clayton, 31. The same 12-person jury on Saturday convicted Clayton of first degree murder for the fatal shooting of his girlfriend, 23-year-old Pashea Fisher, and her parents in the Fishers’ home on Jan. 19, 2012. Clayton got into an argument with his girlfriend before shooting her parents, Arithio and Patricia Fisher. Clayton then shot his girlfriend at close range near the front door. Jurors heard a chaotic emergency call in which Pashea Fisher begged Clayton not to kill her parents. Clayton’s and Pashea Fisher’s four-year-old daughter Joydin was in the house at the time, and he took her with him before turning himself in.
UNITED STATES
Atlantic rower rescued
A man trying to row across the Atlantic from New York to a Scottish island was rescued during a storm early on Saturday by a coast guard team who plucked him from choppy waters off Long Island, an official with the agency said. Niall Iain Macdonald, 39, of Scotland was about 50 nautical miles (93km) from the coast when he sent out a distress call by satellite phone saying he had been injured, the Coast Guard said in a statement. Coast guard officials said a helicopter was forced to turn back by a lightning storm, but a rescue boat carrying paramedics was able to navigate turbulent waters to reach Macdonald in his 7m rowboat shortly after midnight on Saturday.
UNITED STATES
Girl ‘asked to leave’ KFC
KFC Corp says it is investigating allegations that a restaurant employee in Jackson, Mississippi, asked a three-year-old girl to leave because her facial injuries disturbed other patrons. The company is also giving US$30,000 toward Victoria Wilcher’s medical bills, a spokesman said on Sunday. The allegation about KFC was made on Thursday last week on “Victoria’s Victories,” a Facebook page following Victoria Wilcher’s recovery from a pit bull attack in April. The administrator posted a photograph showing Victoria smiling shyly in spite of her facial scars and cartoon-decorated eye patch, and wrote: “Does this look scary to you? Last week at KFC in Jackson MS this precious face was asked to leave because her face scared the other diners.” KFC posted an apology the next morning, requesting details. Her grandmother Kelly Mullins said Victoria wept all the way home and now is embarrassed by her appearance — something that was not the case before, Mullins said. “She won’t even look in the mirror anymore,” Mullins said. “When we go to a store, she doesn’t even want to get out” of the car.
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