INDONESIA
Gamblers publicly caned
Authorities have publicly caned eight men who were convicted of gambling in conservative Aceh province. About a thousand people watched as the eight men were caned inside a mosque compound after Friday prayers in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. An official said police arrested nine people who were gambling in July and seized about US$130 in cash from them, but one could not be caned because of his health condition. A state prosecutor read out their punishment and a masked man wearing robes used a thin rattan cane to whip their backs five times each. Indonesia allows Aceh on Sumatra Island to follow a version of Shariah law, which forbids gambling.
CHINA
Porn purge strikes sites
China’s Cyperspace Administration has closed nearly 1.8 million accounts on social networking and instant messaging services since it launched an anti-pornography campaign in April, state news agency Xinhua reported yesterday. The campaign has been focused on shutting down Web sites showing pornography and services used to solicit prostitution. Most of the accounts closed were associated with microblogs, smartphone app WeChat and the instant messaging service QQ, Xinhua quoted the Cyberspace Administration as saying. Many of the accounts were shut down by the companies owning the apps themselves after public complaints, Xinhua said. There was no immediate comment from any of the companies involved. Beijing regularly launches anti-pornography campaigns because the Chinese Communist Party considers it deeply offensive to public morals. Tencent Holding Ltd’s WeChat is among China’s biggest messaging apps with more than 300 million users.
CHINA
Massive jade deposit found
A massive deposit of jade weighing about 600 tonnes has been found in northeast China, state media said on Friday. The government in Liaoning Province said miners discovered the deposit while digging in a cave in Kuandian Man Autonomous County last year, Xinhua news agency reported. Jade holds mythical properties in China, where it is believed to ward off evil spirits and bring better health. Wang Xingdong, general manager of the local mining company that found the deposit, said it was priceless, according to the report. There is no international pricing system for jade. Seen as a classier status symbol than gold, values have been increasing since 2005 as the newly-rich in China have bought-up jade products.
FRANCE
Criminal exaggerates death
A French criminal came up with a cunning plan to escape the long arm of the law by announcing his own funeral, which both the police and his unsuspecting granny attended. The 26-year-old, wanted for a long list of offenses including fraud and theft, placed a death notice in the Ouest-France regional paper and online. “His mother, father, brothers, sister and the whole of the family would like to inform you of the death of [Cedric L], who passed away on Thursday, September 11, at the age of 26,” the notice read. “The funeral will be celebrated Tuesday, September 16 at 10:30.” However, police smelt a rat and turned up to the funeral at the appointed time to find neither a body nor a funeral — just a bemused grandmother who was not in on the act. The young man planned the scam with great precision, phoning the funeral service pretending to be his brother and then the paper, which dutifully “confirmed” the information with the funeral home.
GREECE
Director held for nude scene
A German avant-garde director and his crew spent a night in police custody over a racy nude scene shot in one of Greece’s most famous monuments, a culture ministry source said on Friday. Matthias Langhoff, 73, a naturalized French citizen, ran foul of authorities while filming in the ancient theater of Epidaurus in the Peloponnese late on Wednesday. Site guards intervened after midnight when one of the actresses disrobed and, according to reports, began simulating a sex act in the stands. “A case has been opened by the police, on the charge of insulting a sacred site,” a culture ministry source told reporters. The official added that Langhoff had secured the necessary permission in July to film in the ancient theater after visiting hours, but the nude scene was not part of the script he submitted to authorities.
CANADA
Cougar shot outside hospital
At least one cougar prompted a lockdown on Thursday at a hospital in the western city of Calgary after it wandered into tall grass nearby for a nap. A Calgary police spokeswoman told reporters one big cat near the hospital’s front entrance was eventually shot dead, and officers were searching for another after several reported sightings. The cougar was “just sitting in the long grass,” the spokeswoman said. Meanwhile “everyone [was] being kept indoors or away, except for medical emergencies.” Fish and wildlife officers had arrived at the scene to try to contain, tranquillize and relocate the animal or animals, but decided to kill the cougar for safety reasons, she said. “It’s likely we’re dealing with [multiple sightings of] only one cougar, but we’re searching the area just to be sure,” the police spokeswoman said.
EL SALVADOR
Flores jailed over bribe
Former president Francisco Flores, accused of embezzling US$15 million donated by Taiwan while in office, was sent to prison on Friday after the court revoked his house arrest. Under heavy elite police guard, the ex-leader was taken from his home in an exclusive residential area in the west of San Salvador and taken in a police car to the Anti-Narcotics Division, where he was confined to a cell, civil police deputy chief Howard Cotto told reporters. On Thursday, the First Criminal Chamber overturned a Sept. 5 court ruling that allowed Flores to remain under house arrest for the duration of the trial. Flores, who was president from 1999 to 2004, is accused of embezzlement, illicit enrichment, and actions detrimental to public administration.
UNITED STATES
Anti-Islamic ads coming
Anti-Islamic ads will begin appearing on 100 New York City buses and at two subway entrances next week. The six ads include an image of US journalist James Foley, just before he was beheaded, standing next to his masked executioner. The ads are paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative run by anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller. She says the campaign tells truths about Islam and jihad that the government and mainstream media ignore. All the ads feature a disclaimer that says the viewpoints are not endorsed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Under a federal court ruling, the agency is required to run viewpoint ads, but the MTA requires a disclaimer. The American Freedom Defense Initiative has posted ads on New York’s transit system in the past that called enemies of Israel “savages.”
MEXICO
Chmalpahin codex exhibited
Three volumes of hand-written, indigenous accounts that vividly describe pre-Hispanic history are on public display in the country’s capital after returning to the country from London. The Chimalpahin codex was long part of the archives of the British and Foreign Bible Society. However, Christie’s auction house says it facilitated the purchase of the 17th-century manuscript by Mexico’s National Anthropology and History Institute earlier this year. The auction house says the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City began publicly displaying the manuscripts Thursday. Christie’s says the manuscripts are written in Nahuatl and Spanish and contain largely unpublished accounts about native life, society and politics. They belonged to the famed library of Don Carlos Siguenza y Gongora, one of the first great intellectuals born in New Spain.
MEXICO
Hurricane toll rises to three
The death toll from Hurricane Odile rose to three on Friday after the body of a second South Korean man was found floating in a harbor in Mexico’s Los Cabos resort. Authorities also reported that two British citizens were missing, five days after Odile tore across the northwestern Baja California peninsula causing widespread damage to hotels and neighborhoods. The 58-year-old South Korean mining executive’s body was recovered one day after his colleague was found dead from drowning, prosecutors said in a statement. The two men were trying to drive a car across a stream when they were swept away by floods earlier this week. A German man died of a heart attack in a boat. Helicopters were deployed to search for a Scottish man and woman whose boat apparently sank, said state tourism secretary Ruben Reachi Lugo. The hurricane stranded 30,000 tourists in Los Cabos after roads and airports were damaged. An airlift has evacuated 18,000.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was