NEPAL
Pair jailed for raping orphans
A Kathmandu court has jailed two men who worked at a prominent orphanage for repeatedly raping three autistic girls in their care, an official said on Tuesday. A judge at the capital’s district court found the pair guilty of rape on Monday in a fast-track ruling. “Justice Pashupati Acharya has sentenced Rabin Shrestha and Rabin Chalise to 16-and-a-half years of imprisonment each,” court spokesman Shree Prasad Sanjel said. “He also ordered both of them to give 100,000 rupees (US$1,000) as compensation to each of the victims.” Shrestha, 43, worked as head of adoptions at Bal Mandir orphanage, where Chalise volunteered as a fund-raiser. The girls, aged 13, 14 and 15, complained to a rights group, which alerted police in June. The defendants’ lawyer, Ganesh Adhikari, said he is to appeal.
CHINA
Plan to film teachers panned
A plan by Guizhou Province’s education department to install CCTV cameras in university classrooms have come under fire from lawyers, who say the move will curb academic freedom, state-run media said yesterday. Guizhou has declared that all higher education institutions should set up cameras to “monitor teachers,” the Global Times reported. Four local lawyers called for an explanation and are demanding that the department “justify its move,” saying they will consider legal action if it does not do so, the report said. Guizhou University professor An Heping told the Global Times that “teachers should have nothing to fear if they say the right thing.”
JAPAN
Vagina kayak artist arrested
An artist who made a kayak modelled on her vagina was arrested yesterday, police said, sparking accusations of censorship. Megumi Igarashi was arrested in July for trying to raise funds online to pay for the construction of the kayak using a 3D printer. She was released days later following a legal appeal and after thousands of people signed a petition demanding her freedom. However, she was rearrested yesterday on suspicion of sending a link “that shows her plan to create a boat using three-dimensional obscene data to a large number of people,” a Tokyo police spokeswoman said. Igarashi “tried to have those people who were willing to finance her plan download the 3D obscene data” in October last year, the spokeswoman said. Igarashi also allegedly sold CD-ROMS containing similar data at a May exhibition in Tokyo. “I don’t believe my vagina is anything obscene,” Igarashi said in a July press conference after her release.
UAE
American stabbed to death
Abu Dhabi police are investigating the death of a US woman stabbed in a shopping center bathroom by a suspect wearing a Muslim veil, official media reported yesterday. The motive for Monday’s attack in Boutik Mall was unclear. Witnesses said the 37-year-old American, who worked at a nursery school, was stabbed by a person wearing a black robe, black gloves and a hijab. “The victim was stabbed with a sharp object following an argument in the ladies toilets,” the head of Abu Dhabi’s police criminal investigations department, Colonel Rashid Bourscheid, was quoted as saying by the National daily. The American died after being taken to hospital. The stabbing took place the same day that a recording attributed to Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani urged Muslims to attack Westerners by any means. The United Arab Emirates is part of a US-led coalition against the extremist group.
UNITED STATES
100 brains missing in Texas
The University of Texas at Austin is missing about 100 brains — about half of the specimens the university had in a collection of brains preserved in jars of formaldehyde. One of the missing brains is believed to have belonged to clock tower sniper Charles Whitman. “We think somebody may have taken the brains, but we don’t know at all for sure,” psychology professor Tim Schallert, co-curator of the collection, told the Austin American-Statesman. His co-curator, psychology professor Lawrence Cormack, said: “It’s entirely possible word got around among undergraduates and people started swiping them for living rooms or Halloween pranks.” The Austin State Hospital had transferred the brains to the university about 28 years ago under a “temporary possession” agreement.
UNITED KINGDOM
AI rise a threat: Hawking
Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has warned that the development of artificial intelligence (AI) could mean the end of humanity. In an interview with the BBC, Hawking said such technology could rapidly evolve and overtake humankind, a scenario like that envisaged in the Terminator movies. “The primitive forms of artificial intelligence we already have have proved very useful, but I think the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” Hawking said in an interview aired on Tuesday. “Once humans develop artificial intelligence it would take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded,” Hawking said. Although keen to take advantage of modern communications technology, he said the Internet had brought dangers as well as benefits, citing a warning from the new head of electronic spying agency GCHQ that it had become a command center for criminals and terrorists.
ITALY
Ex-mayor of Rome arrested
Police on Tuesday raided the home of an ex-mayor of Rome in an anti-mafia sweep that also snared a one-eyed mobster who is one of the most notorious figures in recent history. Former mayor Gianni Alemanno and the city’s current anti-corruption chief, Italo Walter Politano, were among a group of about 100 people named as being under investigation in a probe into a criminal network that police said had become very powerful in the capital. They believe it was run by Massimo Carminati, who was given a 10-year prison term in 1998 for being part of the Magliana gang that wielded enormous influence in Rome in the 1970s and 1980s. Carminati, who lost an eye in a shootout with police, has been described by local media as the “black soul” of the Roman underworld. Of the 100 people under investigation, 37 were arrested on Tuesday, with 29 detained in custody. The suspects include businessmen and politicians suspected of mafia links, corruption and extortion.
UNITED STATES
Man guilty of art fraud
A New York man has pleaded guilty to defrauding art collectors out of US$2.5 million by selling fake works he said were by US artists Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning. During a nine-year scam, 54-year-old John Re of East Hampton used the proceeds to buy a submarine in Texas. He pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud before US District Judge Kevin Castel on Monday and is due to be sentenced on April 10 next year. He admitted to selling dozens of paintings, sketches and pastels to art collectors for thousands of dollars.
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