CHINA
Crimewave blamed on drugs
An increase in the smuggling of synthetic drugs like methamphetamine from Southeast Asia has fueled a rise in violent crime in the nation this year, a state-run newspaper reported yesterday. In the first nine months of the year, police recorded more than 100 incidents of violent crime blamed on methamphetamine, more than the total number seen in the previous five years, Liu said. “China is facing a grim task in curbing synthetic drugs, including ‘ice,’ which more and more of China’s drug addicts tend to use,” the official China Daily quoted Liu Yuejin (劉躍進), head of the public security ministry’s Narcotics Control Bureau, as saying, referring to the street name for methamphetamine. “Compared with traditional drugs, such as heroine and opium, methamphetamine can easily lead to mental problems,” Liu added. “Addicts will be prone to extreme and violent behavior, including murder and kidnapping.” Methamphetamine was being smuggled into China’s southwestern province of Yunnan and region of Guangxi, both of which border Southeast Asia, the newspaper said.
CHINA
Japanese star mourned
The nation yesterday mourned the death of Japanese film star Ken Takakura, in a rare expression of cultural affinity between the Asian rivals. Takakura, best-known in the West for his role as a tough detective in Ridley Scott’s Black Rain, came to prominence in China when Japanese movies were allowed into the country in the late 1970s. He died last week of lymphoma at the age of 83, reports said on Tuesday, after a decades-long acting career dotted with starring roles, often as a mobster or a police officer or other strong, silent types enduring hardship in the pursuit of justice. “Ken Takakura is a witness to the history of friendship between the Chinese and Japanese people,” one user wrote on microblogging Web site Sina Weibo. Others hailed him as “Japan’s last tough guy” and “a Japanese national treasure who loves China.” Xinhua news agency on Tuesday described Takakura as an actor who “helped redefine the image Chinese males hoped to obtain for an entire generation,” adding that Takakura’s 1976 hit Manhunt was among the first Japanese films to be screened in the nation after the Cultural Revolution.
THAILAND
Police search for Uighurs
Authorities on Tuesday said they were searching for about 120 ethnic Uighurs who fled China and were detained in the south by police earlier this year, but escaped this month from a shelter there. The escapees, almost all women and children, left the shelter in several separate groups this month; 21 have been found, leaving an additional 120 or so at large, said Major General Puthishart Aekkashal, deputy police chief of a region in Songkhla Province, where the migrants were initially detained in March. At the time, authorities took into custody 198 Uighurs who had entered the nation voluntarily, the officer said.
JAPAN
Man arrested over dead dogs
Police have arrested a former pet shop worker for allegedly abandoning 80 dogs, dead and alive, in the countryside, officials and reports said yesterday. Masaki Kimura, 39, admitted that he had been paid ¥1 million (US$8,500) by a breeder to dispose of the miniature dachshunds, toy poodles and corgies. He gave them no food or water, Jiji Press reported, and all but eight of the animals died in the wooden crates he was using to transport them.
MEXICO
Pena Nieto defends mansion
President Enrique Pena Nieto on Tuesday defended his wife’s controversial purchase of a mansion owned by a government contractor, saying the former soap opera star would provide her own public explanation. A visibly irate Pena Nieto lashed out at a report of a house purchase that has raised ethical questions about his administration, saying the information was full of “falsehoods.” As he left on a six-day trip to China and Australia last week, the news Web site Aristegui Noticias reported that the property was owned by a firm linked to a Chinese-led consortium that recently won a lucrative bullet train contract. The president abruptly revoked the train contract on Nov. 6, just three days after it was awarded to the sole bidder, a Chinese-Mexican group headed by China Railway Construction Corp.
HONDURAS
Search for Ms Honduras on
Officials combed valleys and mountains on Tuesday in a desperate search for the reigning Miss Honduras, Maria Jose Alvarado, who was abducted days before she was to compete in the Miss World contest. Alvarado, 19, and her sister, Sofia Trinidad, disappeared on Thursday last week outside Santa Barbara after a birthday party at a local resort. Police spokesman Jose Coello said officers were scouring river valleys and mountains near the Guatemalan border looking for any trace of the sisters. Alvarado had been set to fly to London yesterday for Miss World.
UNITED STATES
Hundreds of rapes ignored
The mayor of New Orleans says hundreds of rape and child abuse cases that went largely ignored by five police detectives over a three-year period will be reopened and thoroughly investigated. Mayor Mitch Landrieu on Tuesday said that a special team of police officers would reopen hundreds of mishandled cases uncovered by a city inspector general’s audit that was released last week. The report charged that five detectives failed to do substantial investigation of more than 1,000 sex crimes and child abuse cases. It found that the detectives classified 65 percent of the cases they received as “miscellaneous,” for which no report at all was written. The inspectors said those cases could not be examined due to the “total void of information.”
MEXICO
Marines kill cartel hitman
Marines have killed the chief enforcer of the Knights Templar in the western state of Michoacan, a federal official said on Tuesday, dealing a fresh blow to the drug cartel. Jose Julio Mendoza Roman, alias “El Parotas,” was considered one of the men closest to the cartel’s fugitive leader, said Alfredo Castillo, the government’s special security envoy to Michoacan. Mendoza Roman, 36, and another hitman were killed in a shootout with marines on Saturday after gang suspects fired at a military helicopter that had landed in the town of Tumbiscatio to arrest them, Castillo said.
ITALY
Mafia initiation filmed
Secret mafia initiation rites have been caught on camera for the first time by police, who on Tuesday arrested 40 suspected gangsters in raids in the north. The arrests, on charges of criminal association, illegal arms sales and extortion, followed a two-year investigation using wiretaps and hidden cameras in locations known to be frequented by mobsters, police said. “For the first time the swearing-in ceremonies have been recorded live,” Milan prosecutor Ilda Boccassini said at a press conference following the raids.
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