SOUTH KOREA
Plane grounded by threat
A Korean Air passenger jet made an emergency landing at a Canadian military airbase after a call center in the US received a threat by telephone late on Tuesday, the airline said. Korean Air flight 72, which was en route to South Korean capital Seoul, diverted to the Comox base on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, soon after takeoff from Vancouver, the airline said in a statement released yesterday in Seoul.
AUSTRALIA
Mom runs across desert
A 51-year-old mother said yesterday she felt “fantastic,” but tired, after becoming the first woman to run across the Simpson Desert, enduring searing temperatures on the 660km journey. Intensive care nurse Jane Trumper had attempted the run last year, only to be stopped at 352km by bushfires. Trumper said the relentless desert heat had been difficult on the run, which began at the geographical center of the country in the Northern Territory, detoured through South Australia and ended in Birdsville, southwest Queensland. “It was 45 degrees [Celsius] on the first day and I really had doubts about whether I would absolutely get this thing done,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
PHILIPPINES
Extortionists bomb bus
Suspected extortionists bombed a bus in the south yesterday, killing two passengers and wounding five others, the military said. The military initially reported 10 dead, but regional commander Lieutenant Colonel Benjie Hao later revised the death toll. The bomb went off on the bus as it pulled into a terminal in Carmen town in North Cotabato province, said another military officer, Colonel Leopoldo Galon. He said that extortion gangs linked to Muslim rebels have been suspected in previous attacks targeting bus companies in the region.
JAPAN
Killer gets life sentence
A court yesterday upheld the life sentence for a man who raped and killed a young British teacher and buried her battered body in a sand-filled bathtub in his apartment. The Tokyo High Court rejected the appeal by Tatsuya Ichihashi, who claimed his life sentence for the 2007 murder of Lindsay Ann Hawker was too harsh. Ichihashi, 32, admitted raping Hawker, but said he killed the 22-year-old accidentally. His appeal had sought a reduction in the life sentence. Prosecutors argued that the killing by Ichihashi — who spent more than two-and-a-half years on the run and underwent plastic surgery to evade capture — was premeditated and the life term was justified. As Judge Yoshinobu Iida said that Ichihashi’s claim that Hawker’s death was accidental was not credible.
NEPAL
Rebels to be integrated
Soldiers arrived yesterday at camps where thousands of former communist rebels have lived for more than five years as the ex-fighters prepared to join the army in a key step in the nation’s peace process. The government’s chief monitor for the former rebels, Balananda Sharma, said army soldiers arrived at all seven main camps and eight satellite camps spread across the country. The former rebel fighters have been living in the camps since 2006, when the Maoists abandoned their 10-year armed revolt and joined a peace process. Most of the former fighters will now be integrated into the army, a key part of a peace process that has been delayed because of disagreements among the major political parties.
HAITI
Senate approves Lamothe
The senate has approved the nomination of Laurent Lamothe as prime minister, a parliamentary source said. Lamothe, who was tapped for the position by President Michel Martelly after the resignation of Gary Conille in February, must still win the approval of the Chamber of Deputies. The senate vote was held late on Tuesday after a long debate and was announced by Senate President Simon Dieuseul Desras. Lamothe’s candidacy was approved 19-3, with one abstention. However, Lamothe’s appointment and the formation of a new government could still take months, as Martelly does not have a majority in parliament.
CANADA
‘Eco-terrorist’ Ludwig dies
Wiebo Ludwig, a so-called eco-terrorist known for acts of sabotage against the nation’s oil and gas industry, died of cancer of the esophagus on Monday at his rural home in Alberta, local media said. He was 70 years old. The former pastor waged a decades-long battle against the oil and gas industry, which he accused of poisoning his family and livestock and of polluting the environment near his 325 hectares farm in Hythe, Alberta. He was convicted in 2000 of bombing and vandalizing several oil and gas wells in northwestern Alberta, but was released from prison after serving two-thirds of a 28-month sentence.
VENEZUELA
Makled challenges charges
Top drug trafficking suspect Walid Makled plans to challenge charges of money laundering, drug smuggling and murder in his trial, his lawyer said on Tuesday. Attorney Rafael Ojeda said Makled would plead not guilty and his defense team would prove their client’s innocence by presenting approximately 200 documents and witnesses during the trial, which began on Monday. Makled was captured in Colombia in 2010 and extradited to Venezuela last year. While under arrest in Colombia, he caused a stir when he told a TV channel that he made monthly million-dollar payments to a group of more than 40 Venezuelan government officials and military officers.
VENEZUELA
Costa Rican envoy freed
A diplomat from the Costa Rican embassy was freed by his captors after a kidnapping ordeal that lasted more than a day, and the government said it was reinforcing security for diplomats in the country. Guillermo Cholele, the trade attache for the Costa Rican embassy, appeared on state TV on Tuesday thanking authorities for their work hours after his abductors released him. He also publicly thanked his captors for “returning me alive.” Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said that no ransom was paid and that Cholele was in good health after being picked up by police in a town south of Caracas. He added that “police pressure” led the abductors to free him.
ARGENTINA
Baby alive in morgue
A woman who insisted on seeing the presumably lifeless body of her premature baby found the infant alive in the drawer of a hospital morgue. Authorities say the girl had spent 12 hours in the refrigerated room at the Perrando de Resistencia hospital. Analia Bouter told Todo Noticias television that she thought she was hallucinating when she looked at her infant in the morgue drawer and heard a whimper and saw signs of life. Doctors say the girl is now in good condition. The girl was born on Tuesday last week after just six months of pregnancy, and the hospital issued a death certificate, saying she died of unknown causes, Bouter said.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘KAMPAI’: It is said that people in Japan began brewing rice about 2,000 years ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol Traditional Japanese knowledge and skills used in the production of sake and shochu distilled spirits were approved on Wednesday for addition to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a committee of the UN cultural body said It is believed people in the archipelago began brewing rice in a simple way about two millennia ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol. By about 1000 AD, the imperial palace had a department to supervise the manufacturing of sake and its use in rituals, the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association said. The multi-staged brewing techniques still used today are
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