PHILIPPINES
Arroyo case dismissed
The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed a plunder charge against former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, ordering her immediate release from nearly five years of hospital detention. The 15 justices voted 11-4 to grant Arroyo’s petition seeking the dismissal of the plunder case because of a lack of evidence, court spokesman Theodore Te said. The case involved the alleged misuse of 366 million pesos (US$7.8 million at current exchange rates) of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office fund.
JAPAN
Yasukuni bomber sentenced
A South Korean man was yesterday sentenced to four years in prison for detonating a homemade pipe bomb at the Yasukuni Shrine in November last year. During the trial Jeon Chang-han, 28, admitted to illegally entering the shrine and detonating the bomb. No one was hurt in the blast. Prosecutors had demanded a five-year sentence, claiming the explosion was an act of terrorism, according to Jiji Press. Jeon left the country after the blast, but was arrested when he returned early the next month, reportedly carrying 2kg of gunpowder.
PAKISTAN
Judge’s son rescued
Soldiers yesterday rescued the kidnapped son of a senior judge from his Taliban captors after finding him bound in chains with his mouth taped shut and wearing in a burqa to hide his identity. Lawyer Awais Ali Shah, the son of Sindh provincial Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, was kidnapped outside a supermarket in Karachi on June 21. He was found in the backseat of a car in a town bordering the northwestern tribal areas about 2am. An army spokesman said three “terrorists” were killed during the rescue, adding that they belonged to a splinter faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.
PAKISTAN
Police take up murder case
Authorities have barred the family of a murdered social media celebrity from legally “forgiving” their son for strangling her, sources said, in a rare stand against the practice of “honor killings.” Mohammed Waseem drugged and strangled Qandeel Baloch, 26, on Friday last week. He has said she had damaged the family’s honor with her social media pictures. Police on Monday took took over from Baloch’s father, Mohammad Azeem, as the main complainant in the case, which means the family will not be able to take advantage of laws that allow close relatives of murder victims to forgive the killers.
NEPAL
Amnesty demands probe
The government must investigate allegations that police tortured protesters arrested during last year’s demonstrations against a new constitution that left at least 50 people dead nationwide, Amnesty International said yesterday. Eight officers and an 18-month-old boy were killed during clashes in Tikapur in August, prompting authorities to impose a curfew and arrest dozens from the Tharu ethnic minority. Amnesty called for a “prompt, independent, impartial and effective” investigation into the allegations.
MYANMAR
Independence heros honored
Minister of Foreign Affairs Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday paid tribute to her independence hero father at a memorial attended for the first time in years by the army’s chief of staff. The 71-year-old Nobel laureate laid a wreath at the mausoleum dedicated to her father, General Aung San, and eight others assassinated in 1947.
UNITED STATES
Iraq pledges sought
The government expects to raise more than US$2 billion this week for Iraq during a pledging conference in Washington, a senior Department of State official said on Monday. The conference is seeking to raise fresh funds to help Iraqi communities get back on their feet once their towns have been recaptured from the Islamic State group, as well as assist with the clearing of unexploded munitions preventing people from returning home, the official said. “We’re hoping to raise in excess of US$2 billion in what has been a roughly six-and-a-half-week pledging effort,” the official told reporters ahead of the main pledge session for donor countries today.
UNITED KINGDOM
Nuclear program renewed
Members of parliament on Monday voted to renew the nation’s aging nuclear weapons system, a project regarded as key to maintaining the country’s status as a world power following its vote to leave the EU. Despite opposition from the pro-independence Scottish National Party and some in the opposition Labour Party, parliament approved the renewal of the Scottish-based nuclear-armed Trident submarines by 472 to 117 votes.
COLOMBIA
FARC deal approved
The Constititutional Court on Monday gave its approval for a popular referendum on a historic peace deal being negotiated with the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). “There is a green light for us, the Colombian people, to approve the peace deal with our votes,” President Juan Manuel Santos said. The top court held more than eight hours of deliberations before giving its go-ahead to a government bill on the plebiscite, which has already been approved by congress.
GUATEMALA
Bishop slayer killed
A former army officer serving a prison sentence for the 1998 slaying of a Roman Catholic bishop died in a jail riot on Monday that killed a dozen inmates and a female visitor, authorities said. Byron Lima was convicted of the murder of Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi, who was an outspoken critic of military abuses during the country’s 36-year civil war. Minister of the Interior Francisco Rivas said four of the dead had been decapitated. He said the riot involved a fight between Lima’s inmate group and a rival gang headed by Marvin Montiel, who was sentenced to 820 years in prison for the murder of 15 Nicaraguans and a Dutch tourist in 2008. Rivas said the riot began when someone threw a hand grenade at Lima and the inmates protecting him and then attacked them with guns.
UNITED STATES
Instagram concerto launched
Mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital on Monday launched a concerto for Instagram with movements of 15 seconds. The Israeli artist posted the first of five movements of his “InstaConcerto.” He plans to post the subsequent movements of the concerto — composed by Slovak-born conductor and pianist Peter Breiner — each day on his Instagram account at @aviavital. “We wanted to raise questions with this project, both about the artistic value of the composition within the given restrictions of the timeframe, and about the attention span of our generation and its relationship to classical music,” Avital said in a statement. He performed the InstaConcerto with the Kremerata Baltica, an orchestra of young musicians from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
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
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in