■INDIA
Hangman offers services
An aging hangman who retired 14 years ago has offered to execute the sole surviving gunman of the 2008 Mumbai attacks if no one else can be found to carry out the sentence, a report said yesterday. Arjun Bhika Jadhav, now in his 70s and whose face has been partially paralyzed by a stroke, offered his services after hearing that the state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is capital, no longer has a hangman to carry out the execution. “If there is no one to hang Kasab, I am there,” the 73-year-old wrote, according to the Times of India. “Don’t go by my age. I still have the capacity to execute him in just 27 seconds.”
■CHINA
Police crack sex rings
Police in Beijing have arrested more than 1,100 suspects in connection with prostitution rings, many housed in high-end saunas and entertainment venues, state press said yesterday. During the one-month crackdown, dozens of high-end nightclubs and karaoke bars were shut down, as well as more than 250 hair salons, the China Daily said.
■HONG KONG
Stoned taxi driver jailed
A taxi driver who twice crashed his car after snorting ketamine has been imprisoned amid what police say is a spike in driving-high cases. Chan Hon-hoi was convicted on Thursday of two counts of driving under the influence of drugs and two counts of using a dangerous drug and sentenced to 18 months in prison, Hong Kong court spokeswoman Brenda Yu said. The judge also suspended his driver’s license for two years. High on ketamine, the 29-year-old driver crashed into a lamp post on Jan. 2, the Ming Pao Daily News reported yesterday. Two weeks later, while carrying passengers, he ran a red light and stopped at green, also driving on when one of the passengers tried to get off before crashing into a barricade, the report said.
■AUSTRALIA
Woman prostituted daughter
A woman was jailed for 10 years yesterday for prostituting her 12-year-old daughter to more than 100 men. The 41-year-old mother, who cannot be named, placed newspaper ads offering “Angela, 18, new in town.” Prosecutors said the girl, who contracted chlamydia and genital warts, spent her share of the money on drugs. Newspaper reports said the mother booked a hotel room and supplied lubricant and condoms, and knocked on the door to tell clients their time was up.
■PORTUGAL
Pope criticizes gay marriage
Pope Benedict XVI criticized gay marriage and abortion as “insidious and dangerous threats to the common good” in a speech at Fatima as Portugal prepares to legalize same-sex unions. The pontiff received a standing ovation from an audience of Church and lay social workers when he described abortion as a “tragedy” and said the family was based “on the indissoluble marriage between a man and a woman.” Portugal, long viewed as deeply conservative, is set to legalize gay marriage next week only three years after decriminalizing abortion. The law allowing same-sex marriage was passed by parliament in February with the backing of left-wing parties which have a majority. President Anibal Cavaco Silva must sign the bill into law by Monday, three days after the end of the papal visit.
■FRANCE
One dies at cocktail fest
A 21-year-old man died on Thursday after an accident at a huge alcohol-drenched party organized on Facebook — one of two such events held simultaneously in two French cities that drew nearly 20,000 people and, police say, are a dangerous trend. The gatherings, which the organizers call “giant cocktail parties,” took place in Nantes and Montpellier. The man fell about 6m to his death apparently while trying to slide down a railing of a staircase on a bridge, according to the prosecutor’s office in the western city of Nantes. Nantes’ regional prefect Jean Daubigny told 1Tele TV station that 57 revelers were hospitalized after drinking too much. Police said 41 people were jailed. Paris police are already bracing for a giant cocktail party planned for next Saturday. Police headquarters posted its own Facebook note, warning that the event to be held at the Champ de Mars, a grassy esplanade near the Eiffel Tower is illegal — as is drinking alcohol there.
■SOMALIA
Pirates release tanker
Pirates have released a British-flagged chemical tanker, hijacked last year, after a ransom was paid, the EU naval force EUNAVFOR said. “On the morning of May 13 a ransom drop was made to the pirate group holding the St James Park at anchorage at Garacaad,” EUNAVFOR said in a statement late on Thursday.
■UNITED STATES
Polanski seeks information
Lawyers for Roman Polanski have accused US prosecutors of withholding information from Swiss justice authorities who will decide whether or not to extradite the fugitive film-maker to California. A statement by Polanski’s legal team in Los Angeles said the extradition request submitted to Switzerland had omitted details of a sentencing deal agreed by lawyers and the trial judge in his 1978 child sex case. Polanski fled the US on the eve of his sentencing 32 years ago after fearing that the judge, Laurence Rittenband, was about to go back on a deal that would have seen the director spend no additional time behind bars. The Oscar-winning film-maker had spent 42 days in an institution to undergo psychiatric evaluation, a stint which Rittenband had assured the director’s attorneys “would be his entire sentence in the case.” “All we ask on Mr Polanski’s behalf is that the Swiss be informed of this fact by the United States, a fact confirmed by every prosecutor in charge of this case up to now,” Polanski’s lawyers said. The attorneys noted that retired Los Angeles Deputy District Roger Gunson had confirmed the sentencing deal in a 2005 interview for a recent documentary.
■BRAZIL
Church condemns abuse
The Brazilian Roman Catholic Church said on Thursday that cases of child abuse committed by clergymen are crimes that should not be covered up and must be investigated right away. Wrapping up its annual meeting in the world’s largest Catholic country, the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops also said in Brasilia that it did not condone sending priests accused of abuse to other locations, a practice that has helped some alleged abusers escape prosecution. The Associated Press recently reported 30 cases around the world of priests accused of abuse who were transferred or moved abroad, and some escaped police investigations. Many had access to children in other countries, and some abused again. The probe spanned 21 nations across six continents.
■MEXICO
Drug lord’s wife captured
Security forces have detained the wife of the most wanted drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in a raid in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, news reports said on Thursday. The woman, named Griselda Lopez Perez, was captured on Wednesday in a raid on houses in the city of Culiacan, according to the Web site of La Jornada daily. Proceso news magazine said the woman was captured by soldiers and police at her home and sent to Mexico City. The federal prosecutor’s office could not confirm the capture, but the defense ministry said it would make a statement on the issue soon. Guzman was arrested in 1993 on homicide and drug charges, but escaped from jail in 2001. The FBI has offered a US$5 million reward for his capture. The head of the feared Sinaloa cartel made the Forbes list of the world’s richest people last year. The magazine said he was believed to have shipped between US$6 billion and US$19 billion in cocaine to the US over the previous eight years, using elaborate tunnels to evade border controls.
■UNITED STATES
Jail beat hard to keep
Rapper Lil Wayne’s efforts to keep up the beat behind bars have gotten him in trouble in jail, an official said on Thursday. The Grammy Award-winning rapper faces potential discipline after jail officers found a charger and headphones for a digital music player stashed in a potato chip bag in his cell on Monday, city Correction Department spokesman Stephen Morello said. Lil Wayne is serving a one-year sentence after pleading guilty to a gun charge. The items are considered contraband, as inmates can listen to music only on radios and headphones sold at the jail commissary. Lil Wayne’s lawyer, Stacey Richman, had no immediate comment on Thursday.
■CUBA
Search is on for Che friend
The forensic expert who recovered the remains of Che Guevara said on Thursday that a team from Bolivia and Cuba would join forces to hunt for the last missing member of his revolutionary band. Gonzalez, who heads Havana’s Institute for Medical Sciences, said experts from both countries would try to find the site in Bolivia where the remains of revolutionary Jesus Suarez Gayol are buried. Guevara is a national hero for his role in a key battle in Santa Clara in 1958 during the revolution. Suarez, who went by the nickname, “El Rubio” — the blond one — was among the first of his comrades to be executed by soldiers in 1967 when the captured band of guerrilla fighters tried to spread their Marxist revolution to Bolivia.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
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