CHINA
Canadian faces drug charges
A Canadian is to appear before the Liaoning People’s High Court tomorrow on drug charges, a government-run news portal said. The court identified the man as Robert Lloyd Schellenberg. In a brief statement published on Wednesday, the court said he is appealing a drug smuggling case at 2pm, but gave no further details. The news portal, runsky.com, said that Schellenberg is Canadian and had smuggled an “enormous amount” of drugs. China still has the death penalty for drug trafficking. Another Canadian, a woman named Sarah McIver, is also being held pending deportation for working illegally.
PAKISTAN
Consulate attacker killed
A separatist leader who authorities blamed for masterminding last month’s attack on China’s consulate in Karachi has been killed in Afghanistan, officials and Baluch Liberation Army spokesman Jeeyand Baloch said on Wednesday. The spokesman said that their top leader, Aslam Baloch, and five of his associates were “martyred” in a blast. An Afghan official said that six people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a house on Tuesday in Kandahar.
THAILAND
Two drown in golf accident
The bodies of two South Koreans who drowned while golfing have been found, police said yesterday, after their wives’ cart collided with their own, knocking them into a river. The group were on a ferry preparing to cross a river that runs through the course when the men in one cart were accidentally rammed by their wives in another. The impact threw them all into the river, district police Lieutenant Colonel Suwat Suawatmontri said. The women were rescued by nearby fishers. More than 50 rescue workers were involved in the search for Sung Jun-yong, 68, and Ha Jae-oong, 76. One body was found last night about 2km from the accident site, while the other was discovered by villagers yesterday morning “floating near a temple,” Suwat said.
GREECE
Blast hurts two by church
A police officer and a church caretaker were injured in an explosion as they investigated a suspicious package outside a church in Athens early yesterday. The blast occurred at about 7am outside Agios Dionysios in the upscale Kolonaki area of the capital, ahead of a service to mark St Stephen’s Day, police said. Neither of the men had injuries that were life-threatening, police and church officials said. Father Symeon Voliotis told Hellenic Broadcasting Corp that the caretaker found the explosive device at the front entrance of the church, moved it and alerted police.
GERMANY
Boy calls police over gifts
A young boy enraged by his paltry selection of Christmas presents called the police, who sent officers to his home to investigate on Tuesday. Having dialed the emergency hotline, the child told police that he had not received any of the gifts he had requested for Christmas. “The officers arrived and found a very angry little boy,” a Zetel police spokesman said, according to the Nordwest Zeitung. Since they had a quiet shift, the police decided to play along and launched an investigation. They first examined the initial list that the child had composed, then compared it with each of the gifts offered to him and held a family mediation session. Police were able to resolve the dispute by persuading the boy that Santa Claus must have confused his wish list with that of another child.
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