■ PHILIPPINES
Briton stabbed to death
A British man who went to the country to propose to a woman he met in an Internet chatroom was stabbed to death by her jealous lover on Sunday, police said. John Lorne McDonald’s would-be bride, Nanqueen Romero, 31, also sustained multiple wounds after being attacked by her local lover, police said in a statement. McDonald organized a party at Romero’s home to ask for her hand in marriage, police said, but it was not clear if she had told him about her local boyfriend, Anselmo Locastales, who turned up and attacked the couple. Locastales is on the run, police said.
■ NORTH KOREA
Fishing boat crew released
Pyongyang said yesterday it was releasing the seven-man crew of a South Korean fishing boat, including three Chinese, after they illegally entered its waters last month. State news agency KCNA said the crew would be sent back to the South “taking into consideration the fact that they admitted the seriousness of their act and gave assurances that they would never repeat such an act.” Pyongyang said the boat was intercepted on Aug. 8 while fishing in waters off its east coast. China had voiced concern about the detention of its nationals by the country, which depends heavily on Beijing’s largesse to keep its economy afloat.
■ CHINA
Hu praises Shenzhen SEZ
President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) yesterday hailed as “a miracle” the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SEZ) that helped set off the country’s boom decades ago, as the nation celebrates the city’s 30th anniversary. “The Shenzhen Special Economic Zone created a miracle in the world’s history of industrialization, urbanization and modernization and has contributed significantly to China’s opening up and reform,” Hu said on a visit to the city. Shenzhen is a noted laboratory for reform. It was the first area designated as a special economic zone that could accept foreign investment under reforms pioneered by former leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平). It offered lower taxes and less cumbersome bureaucratic procedures in order to attract overseas investors and was held up as a model for the country’s manufacturing-based economic growth.
■ MALAYSIA
Pirates rob Japanese tanker
Pirates robbed a Japanese chemical tanker on Sunday amid a “serious escalation” of attacks, the International Maritime Bureau said yesterday. The bureau’s Kuala Lumpur-based piracy center said pirates armed with knives and steel rods boarded the ship off Indonesia’s Mangkai Island last week, stole cash and belongings and fled. The ship was sailing from Singapore to China and none of its 23 crew were hurt. The Sea is close to the Malacca Strait, a key shipping lane for world trade that more than 50,000 merchant ships ply every year.
■ CHINA
Many cars by 2020: official
The number of vehicles on the roads will more than double to at least 200 million by 2020, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Wang Fuchang (王富昌) was quoted yesterday as saying, further straining the nation’s environment and energy supply. The country must make it a top priority to develop fuel-efficient and alternative energy cars, the China Securities Journal quoted Wang as saying. Auto sales hit 13.64 million units last year, overtaking the US as the world’s top car market, while sales this year are forecast to hit 15 million units. The surging car use has brought mounting concerns over pollution, soaring energy demand and traffic gridlock.
■ GERMANY
Terror attack threat on rise
The threat of Islamist attacks is growing as the number of people returning from militant camps on the Afghan-Pakistan border rises, said Joerg Ziercke, head of the BKA Federal Crime Office. On Sunday Ziercke was also quoted as saying that curbs on storing telecom data were hurting efforts to track militant suspects. More than 400 Islamists were living in the country, some of whom had trained in camps, including a hard core with combat experience in Afghanistan, he told Tagespiegel newspaper. Ziercke argued that a ruling in March by the nation’s highest court to limit the archiving of telephone and internet data was hindering investigations. On Saturday, Der Spiegel news weekly reported that a German Islamist held by US troops in Afghanistan and interrogated since July had revealed details of planned attacks in the country and Europe.
■ QATAR
Iran warns of attack
Any attack on Iran would lead to the destruction of Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during a visit to the Gulf Arab state on Sunday. “The US and the Zionist entity will not be able to hit Iran right now. This is a wish ... Any Israeli attack against Iran means the elimination of the Zionist entity from the world map,” he told a news conference in Doha. Ahmadinejad, in Doha for talks with Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, has often called for the demise of the Jewish state. Israel, believed to be the only nuclear-armed country in the Middle East, regards Iran’s nuclear program as a threat to its existence and has not ruled out military action to prevent Iran from building an atomic bomb. International sanctions have been imposed on Iran to force Tehran to halt sensitive nuclear work. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
■ GERMANY
Plane crashes at airshow
The pilot of a small propeller-driven plane lost control of his aircraft while taking off at an airshow in the south of the country and crashed into a group of spectators on Sunday, leaving one person dead and 38 injured, police said. The crash occurred at the Lillinghof airfield about 30km northeast of Nuremberg. Police said it was still unknown why the 68-year old pilot, who survived the crash, lost control of the aircraft and sped into a crowd of spectators. “We have secured the plane and it will be released after an investigation,” local police chief Guenther Losse said.
■ MALAYSIA
Snake smuggler sentenced
A court sentenced a wildlife trader to six months in prison yesterday after he was caught smuggling 95 live boa constrictors in his luggage at the country’s main airport. Keng Liang “Anson” Wong, 52, was also fined 190,000 ringgit (US$50,000) after pleading guilty at a district court to a charge of exporting the endangered snakes without a permit, said Faridz Gohim Abdullah, a prosecuting officer representing the wildlife department. Wong’s bag broke open on a conveyer belt at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Aug. 26 while he was on his way to Indonesia. Wong, a Malaysian, has already served jail time for wildlife trafficking in the US and was also arrested in Mexico in 1998. Activists had urged the court to impose the maximum penalty of seven years in jail. Faridz Gohim, the prosecuting officer, said he would discuss with other government authorities whether to appeal the court’s ruling and seek a tougher sentence.
■ UNITED STATES
Fast answer to budget crisis
One Nevada gubernatorial hopeful sees a speedy fix to the state’s budget crisis.Nonpartisan candidate “Gino” DiSimone believes people would pay for the privilege to drive up to 145kph on designated highways — and fill the state’s depleted coffers. DiSimone calls his idea the “free limit plan.” He estimates the plan would bring in US$1 billion a year. First, vehicles would have to pass a safety inspection. The vehicle information would then be loaded into a database, and motorists would purchase a transponder. After setting up an account, anyone in a hurry could dial in, and for US$25 charged to a credit card, be allowed to speed for 24 hours. The Nevada Highway Patrol is not keen on the idea, saying it would lead to increased injuries and traffic deaths.
■BRAZIL
Cameron offers support
Film director James Cameron said on Sunday he would make a 3D film on indigenous people of the Amazon who oppose construction of a huge dam for fear it could flood tribal lands. “I want to return to meet some of the leaders of the Xikrin-Kayapo tribe who invited me,” the Canadian director said in an interview published in the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper. The filmmaker has already visited the Amazon twice in a show of support for the indigenous tribe and filmed a short piece on their resistance to the damming project, which will be included on the Avatar DVD. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gave the green light last week for the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant on the Xingu River, a southern tributary to the mighty Amazon. Work is set to begin on the project either late this year or early next year.
■ UNITED STATES
‘Black widow’ wins
The “Black Widow” of eating contests gobbled up nearly 181 chicken wings in 12 minutes, devouring the national championship record in Buffalo, New York, on Sunday. “I’m so happy!” said Sonya Thomas, who ate 2.2kg of chicken wings to win the contest, besting world eating marvel Joey Chestnut at the ninth annual National Buffalo Wing Festival. Chestnut came in second after eating 169 chicken wings. Thomas, who’s 1.52m tall and weighs 47.6kg, calls herself the “Black Widow” because she often defeats bigger male competitors — Chestnut is 1.87m and weighs 104.3kg.
■JAPAN
Activists found guilty
A court yesterday convicted two members of the environmental group Greenpeace of stealing whale meat they claim was intended for illegal consumption, giving each one suspended jail terms. The Aomori District Court found the two Greenpeace members guilty of stealing 23kg of whale meat from a delivery service company warehouse in April 2008. The meat came from whales killed during the country’s controversial government-backed research hunts. Junichi Sato, 33, and Toru Suzuki, 43, were sentenced to one year in prison for theft and trespassing, but the sentence was suspended and they will not serve jail time, Greenpeace and court officials said. The two pleaded not guilty to the theft charge but acknowledged trespassing. The country continues to hunt whales along its coastal waters and in the Antarctic under the research exemption to the 1986 ban on whaling by the International Whaling Commission. Critics say the scientific hunts are a cover for commercial whaling because the meat gleaned from the killed whales mostly ends up in restaurants, stores and school lunches.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
NEW STORM: investigators dubbed the attacks on US telecoms ‘Salt Typhoon,’ after authorities earlier this year disrupted China’s ‘Flax Typhoon’ hacking group Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday. The networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, along with other telecoms, were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data, the report said. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of Internet traffic, it said. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
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