PHILIPPINES
Villager kills father-in-law
Officials said a villager has shot and killed his father-in-law and three children over a dowry feud. The attack happened early yesterday in the remote town of Banguigui in Sulu Province, a group of islands in the south, police said. The attacker was abandoned by his wife, prompting him to demand that her family return the dowry he had given her parents, but the parents failed to comply immediately, police said. The gunman escaped.
BANGLADESH
Fugitive cricketer remanded
Fugitive cricketer Shahadat Hossain was remanded in jail yesterday shortly after he surrendered to a court over allegations of beating his 11-year-old maid, his lawyer said. Hossain, who has played 38 Tests for the nation, went into hiding more than three weeks ago after police sought his arrest for allegedly abusing the girl he employed illegally in his home. The cricketer was suspended from all forms of the game on Sept. 13 over the allegations. “Shahadat surrendered to the court today. We will now take action in accordance to the directives of the court,” Inspector Shafiqur Rahman told reporters. The court in Dhaka later remanded the cricketer in jail after denying his request for bail, his lawyer Arif Rahman told reporters. He surrendered to the court one day after his wife, Nritto Shahadat, was arrested on Sunday at her parents’ home in Dhaka. Shahadat, who denied wrongdoing, was also taken into custody after a court denied her bail. Both face charges of assaulting a child and employing a minor. Police raided the couple’s house last month after the maid, Mahfuza Akter Happy, was found crying in a street in the capital. She has told police and local media that the couple beat and tortured her, while television footage showed her looking frail and thin with swollen black eyes. Police have said one of her hands had been burnt with a hot cooking paddle, while other injury marks were also found on her body.
AUSTRALIA
Military vehicles ordered
The nation yesterday said it would buy 1,100 light-armored vehicles from French defense and electronics firm Thales SA for A$1.3 billion (US$920.63 million). Thales Australia won a competitive international tender with its locally designed and built Hawkei patrol vehicle, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in a statement, a boon for the struggling manufacturing industry in the state of Victoria. The Hawkei is to replace the heavier Bushmaster, also made by Thales in the nation, and is to be the only vehicle in the Defence Force that can be transported by helicopter, according to the prime minister’s statement. Full production of the Hawkei is due to begin in 2018, with pilot production beginning early next year. The fact that the new vehicle was lighter than the Bushmaster should give it “enormous potential” in the export market, Defence Minister Marise Payne said at a contract signing ceremony.
UNITED STATES
‘Deadheads’ celebrate
Members of the Grateful Dead and John Mayer are giving away 10,000 free tickets to their concert next month. The veteran band and Mayer, who joined forces for the supergroup Dead & Company this summer, announced yesterday that 5,000 fans are to have a chance to win two tickets each to their Nov. 7 show. The group has partnered with American Express for its music series, American Express Unstaged at Madison Square Garden in New York. Fans can enter to win tickets yesterday through Thursday on Dead & Company’s Web site.
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
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
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not