SINGAPORE
Malaysian port plan decried
The government has made a “strong protest” to Malaysia over its plan to extend the limits of a port in its southernmost state, saying that it encroached its territorial waters. The Ministry of Transport said it had asked Kuala Lumpur to reverse steps to change the port’s limits to reflect the city-state’s sovereignty in the area. Malaysian Minister of Transport Anthony Loke Siew Fook yesterday said those claims were inaccurate, adding: “The altered port limits of Johor Bahru Port are in Malaysia’s territorial sea and it is well within Malaysia’s right to draw any port limit in our territorial sea.”
INDONESIA
Mass killers hunted
Soldiers yesterday hunted for rebels suspected of killing as many as 31 construction workers in restive Papua Province. About 150 military personnel were focusing their operation at Nduga, a remote mountainous region where a state-owned contractor has been building bridges and roads. Many Papuans view Indonesia as a colonial occupier and its building work as a way to exert more control over an impoverished region. “I have ordered the chiefs of the military and national police to chase and arrest all the perpetrators of these barbaric and inhumane acts,” President Joko Widodo said in Jakarta.
CHINA
Human rights official visits
Germany’s top official for human rights was due to arrive in Tibet yesterday for a dialogue with officials after being denied permission to visit the heavily policed region of Xinjiang. German Human Rights Commissioner Barbel Kofler said she had wanted to travel to Xinjiang, where an estimated 1 million members of the Turkic Muslim Uighur minority have been held in political re-education camps. Kofler said that conditions in Tibet give her “great cause for concern” due to restrictions on traditional Buddhist culture and “excessive controls.” She is to hold talks today and tomorrow.
UKRAINE
Russian threat is building
Russia has since August been building up its forces near the border of the two countries and poses the greatest military threat since 2014, the year Moscow annexed Crimea, the commander of the nation’s armed forces said in an interview on Tuesday. General Viktor Muzhenko gestured to a series of satellite images that he said showed the presence of Russian tanks stationed 18km from the border. They increased from 93 machines to 250 during the last half of September. “It is very difficult to predict when it will occur to him to begin active combat actions against Ukraine,” Muzhenko said.
ALGERIA
Slain monks to be beatified
The Catholic Church on Saturday plans to beatify seven French monks and 12 other clergy killed during the nation’s civil war, the first ceremony of its kind in a Muslim nation. The Trappist monks were abducted by gunmen in March 1996 and their severed heads discovered two months later. Beatification is the first step on the path to Roman Catholic sainthood. Archbishop of Algiers Paul Desfarges said the ceremony would highlight the dedication of men and women who remained during the violence. “They did not hesitate to risk their lives because the most important thing for them was their relationship with others, rather than protecting themselves,” he said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Gay filmmaker wins prize
An openly gay Scottish artist who celebrated queer lives in a short film shot on an iPhone on Tuesday won Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize. Charlotte Prodger came out on top at a glitzy reception at London’s Tate Museum for a 33-minute visual compilation called BRIDGIT. The jury said Prodger’s work “meanders through disparate associations ranging from JD Sports and standing stones to 1970s lesbian separatism and Jimi Hendrix’s sound recordist.” The 44-year-old Glasgow-based artist said she felt “quite overwhelmed,” adding: “The stories that I am telling, although they are mine and are personal, are stories that a lot of people — well, I guess queer people — have experienced.”
UNITED STATES
Four charged for tax evasion
Federal authorities on Tuesday announced a raft of conspiracy and tax fraud charges against four men in the nation’s first prosecution related to the Panama Papers. The 11-count indictment stems from what prosecutors described as an “intercontinental money-laundering scheme” involving a global law firm based in Panama. Two Germans, one American and a Panamanian attorney were charged with conspiracy and other counts. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said the defendants “shuffled millions of dollars through off-shore accounts” and had “a playbook to repatriate untaxed money into the US banking system.”
UNITED STATES
Einstein letter on God sold
A handwritten letter by Albert Einstein in which the physicist doubted the existence of God was auctioned on Tuesday for US$2.89 million. In the letter, dated 1954 and written in German to philosopher Eric Gutkind, Einstein said he did not believe in God. “The word God is for me nothing but the expression and product of human weaknesses,” he wrote. “The Bible, a collection of venerable, but still rather primitive legends.” The letter was last sold in 2008 to a private collector for US$404,000, Christie’s said.
UNITED STATES
Flynn could avoid jail
Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Tuesday recommended that former national security adviser Michael Flynn face no jail time due to his “substantial” cooperation with the investigation. Mueller said in a court document that the retired lieutenant general had helped in his and other unspecified federal criminal investigations, including being interviewed 19 times. “Given the defendant’s substantial assistance ... a sentence at the low end of the guideline range — including a sentence that does not impose a term of incarceration — is appropriate and warranted,” the filing said.
UNITED STATES
Woman kills jail escapee
An inmate who had escaped minutes earlier from a county jail in South Carolina was shot and killed by a woman after he kicked in her back door, Pickens County Sheriff Rick Clark said. The inmate was still in his orange jail jumpsuit and had grabbed a knife sharpening tool from the woman’s kitchen in Pickens as he headed toward her bedroom at about 3am on Tuesday, Clark said. “This was a big guy. If she hadn’t had a weapon there’s no telling what would have happened,” he said. “I gave her a big hug. I told her how proud I was of her.” The woman was home alone and had gone through training to get a concealed weapons permit, Clark said.
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
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
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the