SINGAPORE
Car-loving official arrested
A senior civil servant with a penchant for Italian supercars has been arrested for defrauding the government of about S$12 million (US$9.09 million), officials said. It is reportedly the worst case of corruption in the city-state in 15 years. Koh Seah Wee, 40, deputy director at the IT department of the Singapore Land Authority, allegedly raised fake invoices for nonexistent projects and pocketed the money. Assets including a Lamborghini and a Ferrari have been recovered from Koh and a colleague, 37-year-old Christopher Lim Chai Meng (林才明). Koh was charged in court on Tuesday with 249 counts of cheating and other offenses.
MALAYSIA
Woman plunges to her death
An Australian woman fell to her death when her parachute failed to open after she jumped off a tower to practice for a parachuting event, organizers said yesterday. Kylie Tanti Marion, 42, was performing her third jump on Tuesday while practicing at the Alor Setar Tower in Alor Setar when she plunged to her death, tower management said in a statement. Marion, an experienced skydiver, died instantly, according to officials from Telekom Malaysia, which owns the 165m-high tower. She was among 24 foreign and local participants preparing for the KL Tower International Jump on Oct. 7.
MALAYSIA
Teens left baby in trash can
A teenage couple has been sentenced to two years detention for leaving their newborn in a trash can — a penalty that a prosecutor said was harsh in order to send a message about the consequences of unwanted pregnancies. A district court in Malacca state on Tuesday sentenced Mohamad Zolhalmi Khamis, 18, to two years in prison and his girlfriend, who will turn 18 next month, to a detention school for juvenile criminals until she turns 20, prosecutor Farah Wahida Mohamad Nor said. The factory workers had pleaded guilty to abandoning their newborn daughter in a trash can at the factory last month. The baby has been returned to the mother and her family, Farah said.
INDONESIA
Virginity tests rejected
The government on Tuesday dismissed a lawmaker’s proposal to force teenage schoolgirls to undergo virginity tests. Lawmakers in Sumatra island’s Jambi Province have agreed to drop the idea, which was proposed by local parliamentarian Bambang Bayu Suseno. Suseno believes girls should be required to pass virginity tests before they can enter state-funded high schools, citing concerns over pre-marital sex. “Parents are obviously afraid of their daughters being deflowered before the time comes, so before they continue their studies they can undergo a virginity test and automatically protect their dignity,” he told the Jakarta Post newspaper. “Why are girls who lose their virginity allowed to go to public school?”
NEW ZEALAND
Whale freed from rope
Rescuers cut free a humpback whale yesterday that had been entangled for at least two days in a heavy rope that officials said would have caused its slow death. The rescuers in two boats took seven hours to tire out the 12m animal before they could cut the rope, Conservation Department spokeswoman Carolyn Smith said. Similar efforts failed on Tuesday. Spotted close to North Island’s east coast by a fisherman on Monday, the 30-tonne humpback had heavy green nylon rope wrapped around its head and tail. “Immediately following its release, the whale headed steadily out to sea,” Smith said.
IRAN
Prison numbers increase
Iran is holding 35 percent more prisoners in its jails compared with last year, a judiciary official said in a report on Tuesday. “By the end of last month, there were more than 204,000 people jailed in the country,” Mohammad Ali Zanjirei, deputy head of the Prisons’ Organization, was quoted as saying by Fars news agency. “The figure rose by 35.2 percent compared with last year,” he said, adding that out of every 100,000 people in the Islamic republic, 271 were jailed. Previously, the authorities said a large number of prisoners had been locked up for drug-related crimes as Iran is located on a major narcotics trafficking route from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
EGYPT
Businessman’s sentence cut
An Egyptian businessman and politician who was convicted of paying a hit man to kill a Lebanese pop star received a reduced sentence on Tuesday from an Egyptian court after having received the death penalty last year. The businessman, Hisham Talaat Moustafa, 51, a real estate tycoon and former member of the governing National Democratic Party in the upper house of Parliament, was ordered to serve 15 years in prison. Human rights activists and critics of the government of President Hosni Mubarak, whose family has close ties to Moustafa, had hailed his death sentence in May last year as a rare victory for the impartial application of the rule of law. Since then, the Arab world has been riveted by Moustafa’s effort to use his power and connections to escape death in connection with the killing of the pop star, Suzanne Tamim, 30, who fled Egypt after a failed relationship with him. During his trial, prosecutors had said that Moustafa paid US$2 million to Mohsen al-Sukari, a former Egyptian state security officer, to travel to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and kill Tamim. She was found dead in her apartment in July 2008, slashed and stabbed. Al-Sukari had also been sentenced to death, but that judgment was reduced to life in jail, which is 25 years under Egyptian law. Egyptian commentators and political analysts said that Tuesday’s ruling was shocking because of the way it was issued — unexpectedly, even before the lawyers had completed their defense.
ITALY
Apple app offends minister
The tourism minister has taken offense with how Apple’s “What country” app describes her nation. Minister Michela Vittoria Brambilla is complaining that a description of Italy as “mafia, pizza, pasta and scooter” is both “offensive and unacceptable.” A ministry spokesman, Andrea Bianchi, said on Tuesday that Italy is asking state lawyers to request that Apple Inc remove the application from its online store.
ITALY
Court fines GM farmer
A court has imposed a 25,000 euro (US$33,670) fine on a farmer for illegally growing genetically modified maize and ordered him to destroy the crop, but the farmer said on Tuesday he would appeal the decision. Italy has banned cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops pending approval of rules on co-existence of GM and traditional crops. Public opinion in the country is strongly opposed to GM organisms, which are seen as less healthy. Giorgio Fidenato, chairman of pro-GM association Agricoltori Federati who planted the GM maize to speed up approval of GM crop cultivation in Italy, said he would fight the decision and prove he had done nothing wrong.
GUATEMALA
Journalist tortured, killed
Unidentified assailants tortured and killed journalist Victor Hugo Juarez in a residential area just outside the capital, his family said on Tuesday. His body was found along with that of Byron Davila Diaz, the 38-year-old owner of a small graphic design company, at Davila’s home. Juarez owned two online news sites: Wanima News and Guatemala Empresarial. He had reported for the daily Siglo XXI and, more recently, for the sports section of Nuestro Diario.
CANADA
Prostitution law overruled
An Ontario court has struck down key provisions in the nation’s prostitution laws in a case that could set a precedent for the country. Prostitution itself is not illegal, but the court struck down three provisions that criminalized most aspects of it — communicating for the purposes of prostitution, pimping and operating a brothel. Ontario Superior Court Justice Susan Himel ruled on Tuesday that the dangers prostitutes face far outweigh any harm that the public may face. Himel said the laws set up to protect prostitutes actually harm them. The judgment is subject to a 30-day delay as the judge gave the government time to consider how to deal with the potential emergence of unlicensed brothels.
FRANCE
Jet crash a ‘criminal error’
A court in Toulon ruled on Tuesday that “criminal error” was behind the crash of an Air France flight between Paris and Rio de Janeiro in June last year, opening the way for a compensation claim of 20,000 euros (US$27,000) for the family of one of the air hostesses. The evidence was enough to suggest that there had been a “criminal error characteristic of the offense of manslaughter” in the crash that killed all 228 people aboard, the court said. The money will come from funds for victims of terrorism and other offenses.
UNITED STATES
Lottery winner wins again
The odds against winning US$1 million in the Lottery: Astronomical. How about doing it twice? It happened to a man from Missouri, lottery officials said on Tuesday. Ernest Pullen, 57, won US$1 million with a “100 Million Dollar Blockbuster” Scratchers ticket in June. And this month, he won US$2 million with a “Mega MONOPOLY” Scratchers ticket. Pullen, a retired military man, opted to take the cash payment instead of the annuity for both wins.
UNITED STATES
Jeffrey Jones pleads guilty
Actor Jeffrey Jones, best known for playing the hapless principal in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, was ordered to perform 250 hours community service after pleading guilty in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday to failing to update his registration as a sex offender. He was also given three years probation. The actor, 64, had pleaded no contest in 2003 to a charge of employing a teenage boy to pose for sexually explicit photos.
ISRAEL
Maguire fights entry ban
Northern Ireland Nobel laureate and peace activist Mairead Maguire was fighting a legal battle yesterday over the right to enter the country after her involvement with an aid boat to Gaza, her lawyer said. Maguire was refused entry at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv on Tuesday. Officials said she was not allowed in because of her deportation in June after she tried to reach Gaza by boat in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade. At the airport, Maguire was told she would not be allowed in to Israel for 10 years.
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
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