PAKISTAN
Four aid workers killed
Four members of a polio immunization team have been found murdered after being kidnapped in the southwest, officials said yesterday. Local militants had abducted the vaccination worker, two local tribal policemen and a driver in the Zhob District of Baluchistan Province on Saturday. “Security agencies conducted several operations to recover the polio worker and other team members and finally found their bodies in the mountains on Tuesday,” said Nazar Muhammad Khatran, a senior local administration official in Zhob. Taliban militants claim that the polio vaccination drive is a front for espionage or a conspiracy to sterilize Muslims.
BANGLADESH
Subhan to be executed
A domestic war crimes tribunal yesterday ordered the execution of a senior Islamist leader after convicting him of atrocities during the 1971 independence war, triggering violence outside the court. Three Molotov cocktails thrown by suspected anti-government activists exploded outside the courthouse in central Dhaka as Abdus Subhan, a vice president of the nation’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-Islami, was found guilty of murder, genocide and torture. Justice Obaidul Hassan, head of the International Crimes Tribunal, handed down the sentences, saying the 79-year-old leader would be “hanged by the neck until his death.” Defense lawyers said they would appeal the verdict.
JAPAN
Elderly locked and tied
Scores of elderly people living in sheltered accommodation in Tokyo have been routinely tied to their beds or locked in their rooms, officials said yesterday. A Tokyo authority has ordered a care provider to stop the abuse of elderly people in three separate buildings, after inspectors found about 130 people being routinely restrained against their will. The health ministry said in 2001 that bodily restraints should only be used when there is no alternative means of protecting the patient and the care giver. It also said such restraints should only be temporary. “It was difficult for us to see the wrongdoing because these condominiums were not formally registered as residences for the elderly, rather the landlords had insisted that they were being rented out as regular homes,” the Tokyo official said.
INDIA
Modi to sell ‘ridiculed’ suit
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to auction a controversial suit that bears his name in gold pinstripes, which he wore at a meeting with US President Barack Obama, leading to attacks he was out of touch in a nation where many live in extreme poverty. The tailored suit, which was ridiculed by Modi’s political opponents, will be auctioned in the state of Gujarat to raise money for a project he is championing to clean the Ganges river. The auction, which started yesterday, is to last three days.
PHILIPPINES
MILF surrenders 16 rifles
The nation’s largest Muslim rebel group handed in 16 assault rifles taken from police commandos killed in a firefight last month that has jeopardized milestone peace talks, in what the group yesterday said was a show of goodwill. Forty-four police commandos were killed in the Jan. 25 firefight on Mindanao between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and members of the police Special Action Force. Mohagher Iqbal, head of the MILF peace negotiating team, said the group had tracked down the weapons and returned them to show its sincerity and commitment to the peace process.
TURKEY
Pact near on Syrian training
The US and Ankara have reached a tentative agreement to train and equip moderate Syrian opposition fighters and expect to sign the pact soon, officials said on Tuesday. The US military has said it is planning to send more than 400 troops, including special operations forces, to train Syrian moderates at sites outside Syria as part of the fight against the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Three US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the training could begin in middle of next month. The vetted Syrian fighters would be equipped with items including pickup trucks with mounted machine guns, radios and global positioning system trackers, the officials said.
FRANCE
Prosecutor seeks acquittal
A prosecutor on Tuesday called for Dominique Strauss-Kahn to be acquitted of pimping charges in a trial which has seen lurid details of the former IMF managing director’s sex life exposed in court. “Neither the judicial enquiry nor the hearing have established that Mr Strauss-Kahn is guilty” of procuring prostitutes for sex parties he attended in Paris, Brussels and Washington, prosecutor Frederic Fevre said. The economist’s notoriety “should not be a presumption of guilt,” he said. “Our legal system must take pride in never convicting someone if there is any doubt. I therefore request his acquittal, pure and simple.” Meanwhile, two ex-prostitutes who attended orgies that Strauss-Kahn went to have dropped a civil lawsuit against him, with lawyers saying they lacked enough proof to win the case.
ROMANIA
Ex-minister wants wallpaper
Former tourism minister Elena Udrea, in detention on corruption charges, has asked to be allowed to wallpaper and paint her cell walls. Udrea’s lawyer, Marius Stribulea, on Tuesday said his client wanted to renovate her current accommodation. “As you know the conditions are not the best,” he said. However, it appears her request was unnecessary. A court late on Tuesday ruled that Udrea would be put under house arrest while being investigated.
ISRAEL
Treasure trove discovered
Scuba divers have discovered the largest trove of gold coins ever found off the nation’s Mediterranean coast — about 2,000 pieces dating back more than 1,000 years, the Israel Antiquities Authority said on Tuesday. It was by pure chance that members of a diving club in Caesarea had come across the coins on the seabed of the Roman-era harbor, the authority. It said the cache weighed 9kg, but declined to put a cash value on the coins, which it said had been exposed as a result of winter storms. The coins now belong to the state.
UNITED STATES
Mayor warns snow jumpers
Boston residents overwhelmed by massive snowfalls the last month have been recording videos of themselves jumping out of windows and into snowbanks, and Mayor Marty Walsh wants them to stop. The Boston Herald reports. The mayor chastised thrill-seekers who have been filming themselves performing the frosty feat and then posting the videos on social media Web sites. “It’s a foolish thing to do, and you could kill yourself,” Walsh said. Boston city workers are struggling to clear snow-clogged streets and deal with snowbanks up to 3m high. The city has scrambled to keep roads clear after the record-breaking snowfalls.
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