PHILIPPINES
Mayor linked to death squad
A US-based human rights group has reported that a “death squad” that targeted criminal suspects in a southern city was allegedly organized by the former mayor and was responsible for nearly 300 killings over the past seven years. Human Rights Watch yesterday said it has documented at least a dozen of the 298 killings from January 2007 to March this year, based largely on accounts of former hit men, witnesses, relatives of victims and police officers in Tagum City. Former Mayor Rey Uy has denied the allegations and says that they were based on testimonies coerced and paid for by drug dealers and illegal gamblers. Human Rights Watch says President Benigno Aquino III has largely ignored the killings.
MALAYSIA
Panda pair arrives
The government yesterday welcomed a pair of pandas from China, after a month’s delay caused by tensions over the Malaysian airliner which disappeared in March with mostly Chinese passengers aboard. The eight-year-old pandas — female Fengyi (“Phoenix,” 鳳儀) and male Fuwa (“Lucky,” 福娃) — arrived in Kuala Lumpur to an honor guard of water cannons, after a flight from Chengdu in southwestern China where they were bred. Fengyi was briefly shown to the media before being whisked off to the national zoo with her prospective mate. “May the arrival of these two precious icons of China contribute to building an everlasting friendship and sustainable cooperation” between Malaysia and China, Environment Minister Palanivel Govindasamy said at a welcoming ceremony. The two countries agreed in 2012 that China would send the giant pandas for a 10-year stay, in Beijing’s latest use of “panda diplomacy.”
CHINA
Girl killed over homework
An 11-year-old girl was beaten to death by her father for copying a classmate’s homework, state-run media said yesterday. The man “ordered the girl to kneel down, tied her hands and beat her,” Xinhua news agency reported. The father took her to hospital after she stopped breathing, but she died the next day, Xinhua said. Doctors at the hospital in Hangzhou found bruises and injuries on the girl’s neck and back, and signs she had been choked for as long as five minutes, the Xiandai Jinbao said. The incident is the latest in a series of child abuse incidents that have drawn widespread outrage.
AUSTRALIA
Man carries eggs in pants
Australians call tiny swimming trunks “budgie smugglers,” but the term might have new meaning after customs officials at Sydney’s airport yesterday said that they found 16 wild-bird eggs in the crotch of a passenger’s pants. The 39-year-old Czech man arrived on Tuesday on a flight from Dubai when customs officials selected him for a baggage examination, the Customs and Border Protection Service said in a statement. “Officers conducted a frisk search of the man and allegedly found 16 small eggs concealed in his groin area,” the statement said. There was no word on whether it was budgies — small parrots also known as budgerigars — that were allegedly smuggled. The man, whose name has not been released, was to appear in a Sydney court yesterday charged under environmental protection laws with attempting to import regulated live specimens without a permit. The charge carries maximum penalties of 10 years in prison and a fine of A$170,000 (US$157,000).
UNITED KINGDOM
Charles links Putin to Hitler
Prince Charles has stoked controversy during a visit to Canada by comparing the recent actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s to those of Adolf Hitler, the Daily Mail reported yesterday. The newspaper said several witnesses heard the prince make the comment to Marienne Ferguson, a 78-year-old who fled the Nazis aged 13 and lost family members in the Holocaust. “I ... talked with him about my own family background and how I came to Canada,” Ferguson told the paper. “The prince then said: ‘And now Putin is doing just about the same as Hitler’… I must say that I agree with him and am sure a lot of people do. I was very surprised that he made the comment as I know they [the royal family] aren’t meant to say these things but it was very heartfelt and honest.” Charles met Ferguson during a tour of the Canadian Museum of Immigration in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as part of his four-day trip to Canada
with his wife, Camilla.
UNITED STATES
Supreme Court orders stay
The Supreme Court ordered a last-minute stay of execution for a convicted murderer and rapist who argued that a rare medical condition risked making the lethal injection unconstitutional. Missouri inmate Russell Bucklew, who was convicted of murdering a love rival and raping a former girlfriend, argued that a medical condition which leaves him with growths on his head and neck creates significant risk that he will die an agonizing death — making it unconstitutional. A tortuous and painful death is in violation of the US Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. Executions by lethal injection have become highly controversial since the 32 states with capital punishment began facing a shortage of drugs used to execute death row inmates.
UNITED STATES
Twelve Russians sanctioned
The Department of the Treasury on Tuesday imposed sanctions against 12 Russians under a law named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who alleged in 2008 that organized criminals colluded with a Russian government official to claim a fraudulent US$230 million tax rebate. The sanctions cover four prison officials, a judge, court official, a law enforcement investigator and alleged co-conspirators in the fraud case, including Dmitry Kratov, a physician who was charged in Magnitsky’s 2009 death, but acquitted of negligence in December last year. The sanctions ban visas for the individuals and freeze assets under Washington’s jurisdiction.
RUSSIA
Five convicted of murder
A court in Moscow has convicted five men of involvement in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, three of whom were acquitted in a previous trial. Tuesday’s jury verdict found that Rustam Makhmudov was the gunman who shot Politkovskaya in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building and that his two brothers, their uncle and a former policeman were accomplices. A judge was expected to sentence the five men yesterday; all could face up to life in prison. Politkovskaya’s work was sharply critical of the Kremlin and its policies in Chechnya. The Makhmudovs and their uncle are of Chechen origin. Authorities have not identified any person as responsible for ordering the killing.
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
ICE DISPUTE: The Trump administration has sought to paint Good as a ‘domestic terrorist,’ insisting that the agent who fatally shot her was acting in self-defense Thousands of demonstrators chanting the name of the woman killed by a US federal agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, took to the city’s streets on Saturday, amid widespread anger at use of force in the immigration crackdown of US President Donald Trump. Organizers said more than 1,000 events were planned across the US under the slogan “ICE, Out for Good” — referring to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is drawing growing opposition over its execution of Trump’s effort at mass deportations. The slogan is also a reference to Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother shot dead on Wednesday in her
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