HONG KONG
Mainland cars protested
Several hundred people marched on Sunday, opposing a controversial government scheme that allows mainland Chinese cars into the territory, further escalating tensions between the two sides. About 300 protesters in the busy downtown area chanted slogans such as “[we] oppose mainland cars roaming in Hong Kong freely!” and waved banners that read “No, no, no, mainland Chinese cars.”
NEW ZEALAND
Flu scare quarantines plane
Health authorities yesterday said they overreacted to an influenza scare on a flight from Japan by quarantining the plane on the tarmac at Auckland airport for several hours. The Air New Zealand flight from Tokyo was isolated after it landed yesterday morning, when the airline informed health officials that about 60 Japanese students were displaying flu-like symptoms. The Auckland Regional Public Health Service put local hospitals on standby for mass patient admissions, as medical teams in biohazard suits entered the Boeing 777-200 to examine the sick passengers. They were eventually allowed to disembark after about three hours, when it was determined that, while some had colds, they had been immunized against flu and did not have the virus.
AUSTRALIA
Gay marriage bills mulled
Two rival bills that would lift a ban on gay marriage were introduced into parliament yesterday, weeks after the ruling Labor Party lifted its opposition to same-sex unions. The bills are essentially the same. Both place same-sex couples on the same footing as heterosexuals, but allow religious ministers the freedom to refuse to solemnize marriages inconsistent with their beliefs.
AUSTRALIA
UK rapist to be deported
A British man convicted of torturing and raping a young woman in a case that drew parallels to the film The Silence of the Lambs yesterday lost his fight against deportation. Leslie Neil Cunliffe was released from jail on parole in April after serving about 12 years for his crimes. Cunliffe was dubbed the “Silence of the Lambs” rapist by authorities after he posed as a policeman in 1999, abducting a 21-year-old woman at gunpoint and locking her in a backyard shed with padded walls. The woman was tied to a chair that had been bolted to the floor and her eyes and mouth taped shut during the ordeal in which she was raped and tortured over several hours in the property in Geelong, west of Melbourne. Cunliffe eventually strapped a fake bomb to her, stripped her from the waist and took photos to demand a A$1 million (US$1.07 million) ransom. The woman escaped after Cunliffe went out to buy food and a woman heard her screams for help.
AFGHANISTAN
Ten-year-old bombers caught
Police arrested two 10-year-old would-be suicide bombers in the south, officials said on Sunday, months after President Hamid Karzai pardoned the pair over a similar incident. The children had two vests full of explosives when they were detained, he added. They had previously been arrested by security forces, again wearing explosive vests, but were reportedly released in August last year, along with 18 other children, after receiving a pardon from the president. The two boys had gone to Pakistan after their release, but were sent back to the country after being trained to conduct suicide attacks. “They told me I would be safe after conducting a suicide attack,” one the boys, Azizullah, was quoted in a statement sent by Kandahar media office.
IRAN
Naval forces built up: US
The country has built up its naval forces in the Gulf and prepared boats that could be used in suicide attacks, but the US Navy could prevent it from blocking the Strait of Hormuz, the commander of US naval forces in the region said on Sunday. “They have increased the number of submarines ... they increased the number of fast attack craft,” Vice Admiral Mark Fox, who heads the US Fifth Fleet, said at a briefing on the fleet’s base in Bahrain. “Some of the small boats have been outfitted with a large warhead that could be used as a suicide explosive device. The Iranians have a large mine inventory.”
DR CONGO
Kabila aide killed in crash
A close aide to President Joseph Kabila was killed and Finance Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo was seriously injured in a plane crash on Sunday in the east of the country, the president’s office said. Two US crewmembers also died, as well as two people crushed by the plane as it came down at Bukavu airport. The statement identified Kabila’s aide as Augustin Katumba Mwanke, 48, considered a key member of Kabila’s entourage. Sud-Kivu Governor Marcellin Tshisambo had also suffered fractures in both legs, an airport official said.
SPAIN
Rally held for rights judge
Thousands of people rallied on Sunday in the capital in support of the disbarred judge famous for taking on international human rights cases. Baltasar Garzon was convicted on Thursday by the Supreme Court, in which the seven-judge panel disbarred him for 11 years. A large square outside the main gates of the Supreme Court filled with about 10,000 people, many carrying placards and banners calling for justice for the former judge and chanting, “Garzon, friend, Spain is with you.” The case was just one of three against Garzon. “Garzon, a top judge, is on trial for three different supposed crimes, something unheard of in Spanish legal history,” said Juan de la Torre, a 47-year-old chemist. “Yet, in each separate case it’s the same seven judges trying him.”
URUGUAY
Attacker subdued on plane
Passengers leapt to the aid of the pilot of a Brazilian jet, subduing an attacker on a flight from Montevideo to Sao Paulo, Brazil, an official said on Sunday. The incident took place on Saturday on TAM flight JJ8047. “A man, apparently mentally troubled, tried to attack the pilot in the cabin; that was where the incident took place and that was when the plane swayed a little,” said Sebastian Torres, a member of the government’s industry delegation who was en route to China when the incident took place. After the incident, the attacker came out “and walked down the aisle ... Then some passengers tried to grab him and he resisted and struggled with them” before he was handcuffed, Torres said.
ITALY
Facebook pics betray fugitive
A wanted Sicilian drug dealer who fled to the UK has been extradited after he gave the game away by posting photos on Facebook of London locations. Michele Grasso vanished from his hometown of Taormina in 2010 as police sought to arrest him for drug dealing. Grasso posted photos under the title “Christmas in London,” followed by snaps of trips to the Ministry of Sound nightclub, the London Eye wheel, Tower Bridge and Oxford Circus. Last year, Grasso was sentenced in absentia by a court to five years in jail and a 24,000 euro (US$32,000) fine for drug dealing.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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