IRAQ
Over 5,000 civilians killed
At least 5,576 Iraqi civilians have been killed this year in violence, the UN said yesterday. At least 11,665 have been wounded since January, when Sunni insurgents led by al-Qaeda offshoot known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant overran the city of Fallujah in the western province of Anbar, the UN said in a report. The UN found the group had executed civilians, committed sexual violence against women and girls, carried out kidnappings and targeted assassinations of political, community, and religious leaders and killed children, among other violations. The report also details violations committed by government forces and affiliated groups, citing “summary executions/extrajudicial killings of prisoners and detainees,” which it said may constitute a war crime.
SOUTH KOREA
Nation to develop fighter jet
The Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday endorsed a plan for the country to design its own mid-level fighter jet, which a state think tank estimated would cost up to 8.5 trillion won (US$8.24 billion). Dubbed the KF-X program, the fighter jet is expected to be built by the nation’s sole jet builder, Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), after being codeveloped with Lockheed Martin Corp, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. The Joint Chiefs said in a statement that they had endorsed a twin-engine fighter jet to be developed for delivery starting in 2025. KAI makes the T-50 family of jets, the nation’s first home-built light trainer and fighter, which was codeveloped by Lockheed Martin. KAI sold 12 T-50 variants to the Philippines in March, after previously exporting the jets to Iraq and Indonesia.
SRI LANKA
Politician jailed over killing
The High Court yesterday sentenced a ruling party politician to 20 years in prison for killing a British tourist and raping his Russian girlfriend more than two years ago. Three others were given the same sentence as Sampath Vidanapathirana by the court. It found them guilty of murdering Khuram Sheikh and raping his girlfriend at a tourist resort on Christmas Day in 2011. The case attracted global attention amid allegations that Vidanapathirana was enjoying impunity because of his connections to the family of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
CHINA
Typhoon renews strength
A typhoon heading toward southern China has strengthened into a super typhoon, the government said yesterday, ordering an all-out effort to prevent loss of life from a storm that has killed at least 54 people in the Philippines. Typhoon Rammasun, which was packing winds of up to 180kph, was expected to make landfall between the provinces of Hainan and Guangdong yesterday afternoon, the National Meteorological Center said on its Web site. Waves could reach up to 13m high in northern parts of the South China Sea and residents were being warned away from coastal areas, Xinhua news agency said.
UNITED STATES
Package delays Obama
President Barack Obama was held aboard Air Force One for more than a half-hour after returning to Washington on Thursday night because of a suspicious package found at the White House, a spokesman said. Obama, who spent the day traveling in Delaware and New York, landed at Andrews Air Force Base just after 10pm, but remained on the plane for 40 minutes while White House security checked out the package. It was the third suspicious package found at the White House on Thursday.
UNITED STATES
Chikungunya case reported
A Florida man is the first person in the nation to contract the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus locally, officials said on Thursday. Previously the only cases recorded had been of people who contracted the virus after getting bitten while traveling, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, an average of about 28 cases a year since 2006. “The arrival of chikungunya virus, first in the tropical Americas and now in the United States, underscores the risks posed by this and other exotic pathogens,” said Roger Nasci, chief of agency’s Arboviral Diseases Branch. The agency said it was working closely with the Florida Department of Health to investigate how the man contracted the virus.
UNITED STATES
Ricin sender gets 18 years
Actress Shannon Guess Richardson,who tried to blame her husband for sending ricin-laced letters to Obama, then-New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and a gun control activist, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Wednesday. US District Judge Michael Schneider sentenced Richardson, 35, to 216 months in federal prison on a biological weapons charge and ordered her to pay US$367,222.29 in restitution. She pleaded guilty in December last year to possession of a toxin for use as a weapon. Prosecutors said she had bought the ingredient to make ricin and then mailed three threatening letters containing the drug on May 20. Ten days later, Richardson traveled to Shreveport, Louisiana, and told police that her husband was responsible for sending the letters. She was arrested in June last year.
TURKEY
‘Bookworm’ driver sacked
An Istanbul bus driver was fired on Wednesday after video footage showed him immersed in a book while travelling at high speed on a busy street. In the video shot by a passenger, the driver holds his book open over his steering wheel, paying far more attention to the words than the road. He only occasionally glances at the street. Goksel Ovacik, the head of the bus company, told private CNN-Turk television that the man had been sacked and had his driving license revoked after the passenger who filmed the video sent it to city authorities. The passenger also launched a criminal complaint against the driver for risking the lives of those in the bus.
CANADA
Senator faces 31 charges
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Thursday laid 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery against a suspended senator who is accused of receiving US$90,000 from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff. The charges against Senator Mike Duffy cover more than US$200,000 in allegedly falsified expenses as well as money Duffy allegedly received from Nigel Wright, Harper’s former chief of staff, to repay the government for the improperly claimed expenses. If convicted, Duffy could be face prison.
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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