THAILAND
Highway blaze kills 11
A passenger van overturned and caught fire on a highway, killing 11 school teachers inside, news reports said yesterday. The Nation newspaper said the teachers were trapped in the burning vehicle after the Friday night crash on a highway in Chonburi, southeast of Bangkok. The Khaosod newspaper said the victims were school teachers. The Nation reported the driver lost control after one of the tires of the van burst. It quoted the Ministry of the Interior’s disaster management department as saying that four people managed to get out of the van before it burst into flames.
SOMALIA
Al-Shabaab executes four
Al-Shabaab militants have publicly executed four men they accused of spying, including one they claimed helped kill their supreme leader in a US drone strike, the al-Qaeda-linked group and local sources said yesterday. The executions took place on Friday evening in a village in the Bay region in the center of the country, the sources said. Three of the men were shot by firing squad while the fourth, accused of helping the US to kill al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Godane in September 2014, was decapitated. “The Islamic court in the Bay and Bakool regions” carried out “the executions of four spies who worked for the US and Kenyan Intelligence Agencies,” the group said in a statement on an al-Shabaab Web site.
UNITED STATES
Lawyer rebukes government
The attorney for a nuclear engineer accused of helping a Chinese energy company build nuclear reactors with US technology said the government’s case involves “novel and untested legal theories.” Documents filed on Wednesday seek to have Szuhsiung Ho, also known as Allen Ho, released on bond, while he awaits trial. Ho is the owner and president of Delaware-based Energy Technology International, which had the state-controlled China General Nuclear Power Company as a client. An indictment unsealed in April accuses Ho of helping develop special nuclear material outside the US. Ho’s attorney said Ho simply helped the Chinese company improve safety at existing commercial nuclear power plants.
INDIA
Toxic leak kills two
A navy sailor and a civilian worker were killed on Friday by a toxic gas leak in the sewage plant on board the nation’s sole aircraft carrier, a navy spokesman said. Captain D.K. Sharma said the Russian-built INS Vikramaditya has been undergoing maintenance work at a naval base in southern India. There was no other damage to the carrier.
UNITED STATES
Police shoot man in Dallas
Police said a 29-year-old Maryland man was newly released from jail on a criminal mischief charge when an officer shot him outside a Dallas airport. Dallas Police Chief David Brown said Shawn Nicholas Diamond of Edgewood, Maryland, was in stable condition in a hospital after the Friday incident outside the Dallas Love Field terminal. Brown said Diamond struck his ex-girlfriend and battered her car with a traffic cone and large landscaping rocks outside the airport. He said an officer shot Diamond after he advanced with rocks in his hands. Police in the Dallas suburb of Carrollton said Diamond was released on bond earlier on Friday after spending the night in jail. Carrollton police spokeswoman Jolene DeVito said Diamond was arrested after causing US$3,700 in damage to city-owned trees by driving recklessly.
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
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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