HONG KONG
Court hears yoga ball killing
An anesthetist allegedly gassed his wife and daughter to death using a yoga ball filled with carbon monoxide, the High Court heard on Wednesday. Prosecutors told the court that Khaw Kim-sun (許金山) left the inflatable ball in the trunk of a car, where the gas leaked out, according to court reports. Khaw’s wife and 16-year-old daughter were found on a roadside in a locked yellow Mini Cooper in 2015. Police found a deflated yoga ball in the back of the car. Prosecutors said that Khaw, a 53-year-old Malaysian, was having an affair with a student and his wife would not grant him a divorce. Prosecutors said it was likely that Khaw had not intended to kill his daughter, as Khaw had said he had urged his daughter to stay at home and finish her homework on the day of the deaths, Apple Daily reported. Khaw had been seen filling two balls with carbon monoxide at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he was an associate professor, reports said.
JAPAN
Typhoon threatens west
Typhoon Cimaron yesterday was expected to make landfall in the west of the nation, raising the risk of more hardship for a region battered by floods and prompting authorities to issue evacuation advisories for more than 60,000 people. Cimaron was likely to cut across the western region yesterday evening, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. “There will be heavy rain in areas that have yet to fully recover,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a meeting at the government’s disaster response headquarters. Shikoku would likely see as much as 800mm of rain in the 24 hours to noon today. At least three municipalities on Shikoku issued evacuation advisories for their 65,000 residents. Meanwhile, Typhoon Soulik has whipped up strong winds, waves and heavy rain in southern South Korea, leaving one person missing and one injured. It is forecast to make landfall at the southwestern town of Seocheon at 3am today, dumping 7cm to 15cm of rain and gusts of up to 160kph.
INDONESIA
Blasphemy ruling criticized
The nation’s largest Muslim organization has criticized the blasphemy conviction and imprisonment of a Buddhist woman who complained that the call to prayer from her neighborhood mosque was too loud. Officials from Nahdlatul Ulama yesterday said that the woman’s complaint about mosque loudspeakers does not constitute blasphemy under the law. The ethnic Chinese woman, Meiliana, on Tuesday was sentenced to 18 months in prison by a court in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra. “We believe that Meiliana did not commit blasphemy,” Nahdlatul Ulama deputy chairman Robikin Emhas said, adding that there was no hatred against any religion in her complaint. Another prominent Nahdlatul Ulama official, Rumadi Ahmad, who was an expert witness Meiliana’s trial, said his testimony was ignored.
UNITED STATES
Airline stops China service
Hawaiian Airlines is to suspend its only route to China after four years of offering the service. The airline on Tuesday announced that the nonstop service that flew three days a week between Honolulu and Beijing is to end in October, citing low demand, Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. Airline spokeswoman Ann Botticelli said the company was optimistic that the number of Chinese visitors would increase, but the market has been slow to mature.
‘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
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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