CHINA
Teacher executed for rape
Authorities have executed a former teacher for raping and sexually abusing 26 children at his school, state media reported. Li Jishun (李吉順) was convicted of having “raped or sexually abused” 26 girls aged from four to 11, Xinhua news agency said. The abuse took place in 2011 and 2012, when he was a teacher at a primary school, it added. Li was put to death on Thursday by a court in Tianshui, Gansu Province, Xinhua said.
CHINA
Officials destroy illegal ivory
Authorities yesterday destroyed 662kg of ivory that was seized after being smuggled into the country, as part of a crackdown on the illegal trade. In front of reporters in a suburban part of Beijing, wildlife officials placed raw tusks and ornate carvings onto a conveyor belt that fed the ivory into a machine that crushed the pieces into tiny pebbles. China bans the smuggling of ivory, but in 2008 secured an exemption to a global ivory trade moratorium to import legal stockpiles for traditional carvings that can be sold domestically. Officials announced a temporary one-year ban on all imports in February, saying that would allow authorities to gauge the effect on poaching.
MEXICO
Senior Jalisco head arrested
Authorities have detained a senior operative of a drug cartel that has clashed with security forces in Jalisco state in recent weeks, officials said on Thursday. Victor Manuel Garcia Orozco, 47, is suspected of running criminal activities of the Jalisco New Generation cartel in the Cienega region, including drug smuggling, fuel theft and extortion, the Secretariat of the Interior said. He is also accused of involvement in “various attacks” against security forces, including the kidnapping and murder of two federal police officials in November 2013 in neighboring Michoacan state, a statement said. The investigation into their disappearance led to the discovery of 37 clandestine graves containing 75 bodies in the Jalisco municipality of La Barca.
UNITED STATES
Socialite gets 18-year term
A wealthy New York socialite was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Thursday after being convicted of killing her young autistic son at a luxury Manhattan hotel room in 2010. Gigi Jordan, 54, was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in November last year after admitting that she administered an overdose of prescription pills to eight-year-old Jude Mirra at the posh Peninsula Hotel on Fifth Avenue. Jordan’s attorneys argued throughout the two-month trial that she had killed the boy in an act of mercy to prevent the boy’s biological father from sexually abusing him, a scenario that prosecutors said was based on fiction. New York Supreme Court Judge Charles Solomon handed down a sentence that was close to the maximum of 25 years under New York guidelines, saying he was mystified by the mother’s lack of remorse.
GUATEMALA
Mob beats, burns ‘witch’
A 47-year-old woman was beaten to death and her body torched by an angry mob who accused her of practicing witchcraft. The woman was killed late on Wednesday in San Luis, in the Tacanas region near the border with Mexico, an emergency responder told reporters. The woman was identified as Catarina Gonzalez Perez. Villagers accused her of being a witch, and bludgeoned her before setting her ablaze.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia