INDONESIA
Wife ‘ordered Briton killed’
The wife of a British man found with his throat slashed and dumped in a ditch on Bali has admitted ordering the killing, police said yesterday. Robert Ellis, 60, who was also an Australian passport holder, was allegedly killed on instructions from his Indonesian wife, they said, with one suspected motive being money. Residents found the decomposing body of Ellis, who had lived on Bali for several years, early on Tuesday dumped next to a paddy field, wrapped up in plastic and blankets. The wife, Julaikah Noor Ellis, went to the police to report her husband missing soon after the body was found, but she was later detained and named a suspect in the case. She was in the house at the time of the killing, but told police that she was in her room when it took place, detective Wisnu Wardana said. The boyfriend of a housemaid allegedly carried out the killing, police said. The maid had admitted it took place in Ellis’ kitchen between Sunday evening and Monday morning, they said. The wife, two maids and the boyfriend were in police custody, while four friends of the alleged murderer suspected of involvement were being pursued by police.
AFGHANISTAN
Opium-growing record-high
Opium poppy cultivation in the country grew to an all-time high last year, despite the US spending more than US$7 billion to fight it over the past decade, a US report showed on Tuesday. Federal auditors SIGAR reported that farmers grew an unprecedented 209,000 hectares of the poppy last year, blowing past the previous peak of 193,000 hectares in 2007. As of June 30, the report said, the US had spent about US$7.6 billion on counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan. One factor for the surge was affordable deep-well technology, which over the past decade turned 200,000 hectares of desert in the southwest into arable land much of which is now being used for poppy cultivation.
THAILAND
Murder confessions retracted
Two Burmese men accused of killing two British backpackers on a resort island have retracted their confessions, their lawyers said yesterday, adding further confusion to an investigation that has attracted widespread criticism. The retractions also come amid growing diplomatic concern that the two accused may have been abused during interrogation. The country’s human rights commission said it would launch an inquiry into allegations of police torture. The bodies of Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24, were discovered on Sept. 15 by cleaners on a beach on Koh Tao, an island in the south famous for its diving. Post-mortem examinations showed both suffered severe head wounds and Witheridge was raped. The gruesome murders have dented tourism, which generates almost 10 percent of GDP, at a time when the country is still under martial law after a May 22 coup that had already kept some visitors away.
SOUTH KOREA
Border Christmas tree pulled
Authorities pulled down a 43-year-old front-line Christmas tower that North Korea viewed as propaganda warfare, with officials saying yesterday the structure was unsafe. The massive steel tower was demolished last week and authorities plan to build a park in its place, Ministry of Defense and local city officials said. The country stopped lighting the tower in 2004 as relations with North Korea warmed during an era of reconciliation. However, it allowed Christian groups to light the tower in 2010 and 2012 as tensions spiked after two attacks that killed 50 South Koreans and a banned long-range rocket test.
UNITED STATES
Watergate editor dies
Ben Bradlee, the hard-driving editor who reigned over the Washington Post with the style of a well-dressed swashbuckler and the profane vocabulary of a dockworker as the newspaper helped topple former president Richard Nixon, died on Tuesday aged 93. Bradlee’s death at his Washington home of natural causes was announced by the Post, which reported late last month that he had begun hospice care after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. As executive editor from 1968 until 1991, Bradlee’s work guiding reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they traced a 1972 burglary at Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate office and apartment complex back to the Nixon White House has been celebrated from journalism schools to Hollywood. The Post won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Watergate scandal, which forced Nixon to quit under threat of impeachment in August 1974.
UNITED STATES
Gang leader arrested
Authorities have arrested the most-wanted leader of a notorious Mexican drug-trafficking gang, accusing him of being responsible for much of the violence that has wracked Mexico in recent years. Investigators swooped on Juan Francisco Saenz-Tamez while he was shopping in Edinburg, Texas, on Oct. 9 and he made an initial court appearance on drug-trafficking charges on Tuesday. “Saenz-Tamez became the head of the Gulf Cartel following the 2013 arrest of former leader Mario Ramirez-Trevino,” Michele Leonhart of the Drug Enforcement Administration said. “He oversaw much of the violence and bloodshed that has plagued Mexico and DEA is pleased he will face justice in the United States.”
MEXICO
Soldiers ‘executed’ a dozen
Soldiers executed at least a dozen people who surrendered after a gunfight in June between troops and suspected criminals, a government human rights official said on Tuesday. The extrajudicial killings accounted for most of the 22 deaths recorded from the incident, which occurred in the central town of Tlatlaya on June 30, National Human Rights Commission President Raul Plascencia said. “Twelve uninjured people are suspected of being deprived of life by military personnel, including two adolescents,” Plascencia said. He said the number of those wrongly killed might be even higher.
RUSSIA
Driver ‘lost bearings’
The driver of a snowplow that blocked the take-off of a private plane at a Moscow airport, killing the CEO of France’s Total oil company, said he drove onto the runway after losing his bearings. The 60-year-old Vladimir Martynenkov said in a video aired on Channel One state TV: “When I lost my bearings, I myself didn’t notice when I drove onto the runway.” Investigators had said on Monday that the driver was drunk, but Martynenkov speaks clearly and looks calm in footage. His lawyer told state TV that Martynenkov does not drink because of a heart condition.
CANADA
Locker yields babies’ bodies
The bodies of four babies have been discovered in a storage locker in Winnipeg, police said on Tuesday. Police said they are “speaking with a number of individuals.” Constable Eric Hofley said he was unaware of any missing infants in the city. Even if it was not a case of foul play, he added: “You’re not allowed to store human remains in a storage locker.” U-Haul said employees at the storage facility made the discovery on Monday afternoon while taking inventory of a delinquent storage locker.
‘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