INDONESIA
Plastic surgery fuels anger
Hardline Muslims yesterday protested in Jakarta over the investigation of an opposition activist who claimed that bruising on her face was caused by a politically motivated assault, but later admitted that it was due to cosmetic surgery. The furor over 69-year-old Ratna Sarumpaet’s bizarre case has stoked political tensions in Jakarta ahead of next April’s presidential election, which would pit President Joko Widodo against retired army general Prabowo Subianto. Sarumpaet, one of Prabowo’s campaign advisers, has been a strident critic of Widodo. After she claimed last week that she had been attacked by three assailants for her political work, a photograph of her face looking bruised went viral, but police found that Sarumpaet had undergone plastic surgery on her face at a Jakarta hospital and charged her with spreading a hoax, a punishable offence.
HONG KONG
Artificial islands to add homes
Artificial islands are to be added to counter a runaway property market that has made the territory the world’s least affordable for housing. The government aims to reclaim 688 hectares off Lantau Island, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) said yesterday in a policy address. “Finding land is the pressing problem that we need to tackle urgently,” Lam told the Legislative Council. “We must make bold decisions.” To mitigate opposition to reclamation, Lam has said most of such land will be earmarked for subsidized housing. As many as 1.1 million people could live on the artificial islands, she said. That is about 15 percent of the territory’s population. The first phase of reclamation work would start in 2025, with people able to move in by 2032, Lam said.
BANGLADESH
Nineteen given death penalty
A court yesterday sentenced 19 people to death over a 2004 grenade attack on then-opposition leader Sheikh Hasina, who is now prime minister. The attack in Dhaka on a rally by Sheikh Hasina, left her injured and killed 20 people. Tarique Rahman, son of then-prime minister and Hasina’s ally-turned-archrival Khaleda Zia, was among 49 people on trial, with Rahman charged with criminal conspiracy and multiple counts of murder. Rahman, 50, who was tried in absentia after he fled the country for London in 2008, was sentenced to life in prison. “We thank God for the verdict,” prosecutor Mosharraf Hossain told reporters yesterday amid tight security.
KENYA
Bus crash kills 51 people
Fifty-one people were killed when the bus they were traveling in overturned and its entire roof was ripped off in an accident in the west of the nation early yesterday, police said. “It is unfortunate that we have lost 51 people,” police chief Joseph Boinnet told Capital FM radio. According to police, the bus was traveling from Nairobi to the town of Kakamega and carrying 52 passengers. The Kenyan Red Cross wrote on Twitter that the bus had overturned, but more details on the cause of the accident were not immediately available. Footage from the scene showed the faded red bus lying on its side, with seats and mangled bits of metal exposed to the air and the ripped-off roof lying at a distance. Dozens of people milled around the accident site and goods were strewn over a large area.
RUSSIA
States backing more hackers
The latest innovations in cybercrime have shifted from financially motivated actors to state-backed hackers focused on sabotage and intelligence gathering, a cybersecurity firm said on Tuesday. “The focus of innovations and research on the creation of complex malware, as well as organization of multi-layered targeted attacks, has now shifted ... to state-sponsored threat actors,” said Group-IB, a firm that works with Interpol and several other global institutions. In its cybercrime trends report for this year, the group said the top three countries in which state-backed entities operate were China, North Korea and Iran. Most attacks carried out in the second half of last year and the first half of this year targeted the Asia-Pacific region, it said.
BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
Oil refinery blast kills one
A powerful blast that rocked the country’s oil refinery in Brod late on Tuesday has left one worker dead and nine injured, of whom four seriously, officials said yesterday. Firefighters put down the blaze at the plant’s oil and gas processing unit shortly after midnight, and rescuers later discovered one body inside the facility, Brod Mayor Ilija Jovicic said. Previous reports said eight people were injured in the blast.
BULGARIA
Man detained in Germany
A Bulgarian man has been detained and charged outside of Hamburg, Germany with the rape and murder of television journalist Viktoria Marinova, officials said yesterday. The suspect was arrested on Tuesday at the request of Sofia, Minister of the Interior Mladen Marinov told reporters at a briefing attended by Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov and Prime Minister Boyko Borissov. The suspect was identified as 21-year-old Severin Krasimirov. “We have collected a lot of evidence which for the time being suggests that the person is guilty. He has been charged in absence for two crimes — rape and premeditated murder with extreme cruelty,” Tsatsarov told a news conference.
SPAIN
Rain kills at least five
At least five people were killed as heavy rains and floods hit Sant Llorenc on the island of Mallorca overnight, emergency services said yesterday. At least another 12 people were still missing after the downpours, local media reported. The regional government called an emergency meeting to coordinate rescue efforts, and authorities said rescue workers and military units were heading to the area to help. “My solidarity and support goes out to the families and friends of victims and all those affected by these tragic floods,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tweeted early yesterday.
GUATEMALA
Former vice president jailed
A court in Guatemala City on Tuesday sentenced former vice president Roxana Baldetti to 15 years in prison for corruption after a trial lasting four months. Prosecutors said that between 2014 and 2015, a group of officials and business executives directed by Baldetti embezzled about US$2.5 million from the Central American country’s public coffers. The money was part of an US$18 million state fund for anti-pollution treatment at Lake Amatitlan, 20km south of Guatemala City. Baldetti “participated in and directed” the criminal network to “defraud the state of Guatemala,” Judge Pablo Xitumul said when delivering the sentence.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was