HONG KONG
Officials heading to Beijing
The government will hold a joint conference tomorrow with other officials in Beijing to discuss the territory’s involvement in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The conference will detail its “full participation in and contribution to the Belt and Road Initiative, the work priorities and initiatives to be implemented for the year,” the government said in an announcement yesterday. Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng (鄭若驊), Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau (邱騰華) and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Patrick Nip (聶德權) are to lead the group heading to Beijing. The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission, Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office and other authorities will also participate, it said.
INDIA
Arrests made after lynching
Police have arrested 15 men after the latest in a spate of lynchings incited by rumors spread on WhatsApp of strangers abducting children, an officer said yesterday. A mob in a mainly tribal area of Assam pulled two men out of their car on Friday night and beat them to death before police could arrive. A video on YouTube shows the badly bruised and bleeding men pleading for their lives. The two friends, residents of Guwahati, were returning from a picnic. “We have arrested 15 persons. We have also zeroed in on a couple of people who recorded and uploaded the video,” police official Mukesh Agrawal said. “The villagers got suspicious of the strangers as for the last three or four days messages were going around on WhatsApp... about child lifters roaming the area.”
GERMANY
Murder suspect repatriated
An Iraqi former asylum seeker was returned from Iraq on Saturday after admitting raping and murdering a teenage girl in Wiesbaden, Iraqi Kurdish officials and local media said. Ali Bashar, 20, is alleged to have strangled 14-year-old Susanna Maria Feldman after raping her. He was on Friday detained in northern Iraq after German police said he had fled there with his family. Despite the absence of a formal extradition treaty, he was put on a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt from the Kurdish regional capital, Erbil, media reports said. He was transferred by helicopter to Wiesbaden after arriving in Frankfurt. “I am delighted the suspect sought by justice is back in Germany,” Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer in a statement, adding he hoped Bashar would now “rapidly” face trial.
IRAQ
Market bomb kills two
At least two people were killed and 20 were wounded after a bomb went off on Saturday at a market in the town of Khalis in Diyala Province, security sources said. Diyala is a mixed province where both Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs live. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the bombing.
EGYPT
US deportee dies at airport
An Eritrean national who was denied asylum in the US and was being sent back to his homeland has died in an apparent suicide in a holding area at Cairo International Airport, airport officials said on Saturday. Zeresenay Ermias Testfatsion, 34, was on Wednesday found dead in a shower area and his remains were taken to a hospital, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said. Airport officials said he was found hanging. His remains will be transported to Eritrea, ICE said in a statement.
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
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
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