VIETNAM
Two arrested for trafficking
Two women have been arrested for allegedly trafficking a child at an orphanage in a Hanoi pagoda famed for rescuing abandoned babies, state media said yesterday. Nguyen Thi Thanh Trang, the 36-year-old manager of the orphanage in the capital’s Bo De pagoda, was taken into custody on Sunday pending a police probe into the trafficking of a one-year-old boy for US$1,700, the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported. Another woman, Pham Thi Nguyet, 35, was also arrested, while three others have been questioned over the same allegation, the report added without clarifying their roles at the pagoda. The Bo De Pagoda in Hanoi is renowned for its orphanage where dozens of abandoned children are cared for, including the disabled — from teenagers with Down syndrome to blind babies. The boy, who was believed to have been left at the pagoda’s entrance at birth, disappeared suddenly “without reason,” the report said, adding complaints led to a police investigation. Officers discovered that the boy was “in fact trafficked” in exchange for US$1,700.
GUAM
Man found guilty of murder
A man was found guilty yesterday of killing three Japanese tourists and injuring 11 more during a frenzied knife attack last year. Chad Ryan de Soto had pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and 11 of attempted murder by reason of insanity, but a jury convicted him after a seven-week trial that included two weeks of deliberations. De Soto, 22, faces the prospect of life without parole when he is sentenced on Sept. 25. He has never provided an explanation for the attack on Feb. 12 last year, when he plowed his car into people in the tourist district of Tumon, then attacked bystanders at random with a knife in each hand. All of the victims were Japanese, including an eight-month-old baby and three-year-old toddler who both survived.
JAPAN
Military space force planned
Tokyo is planning to launch a military space force by 2019 that would initially be tasked with protecting satellites from dangerous debris orbiting the Earth, a report said. The move is aimed at strengthening cooperation with the US in space and it comes after the two nations pledged to boost joint work on monitoring space debris, Kyodo news agency said on Sunday. Tokyo would provide the US military with information obtained by the force as part of the joint bid to strengthen ties in space, the so-called “fourth battlefield,” Kyodo said, citing unnamed sources. The defense ministry is looking at creating the new force using personnel from the Air Self-Defence Force, the nation’s air force, it added. Thousands of pieces of debris are orbiting the Earth.
GERMANY
Police rescue elderly cyclist
Police rescued an 83-year-old man pushing his bicycle in the middle of a motorway on Saturday after he gave up trying to cycle to Luxembourg to withdraw more than 100,000 euros (US$134,300) from a bank. Police in Schweich, near the western town of Trier, said they closed the high-speed A602 motorway in both directions after the man was spotted pushing his bicycle. Police said he told them he wanted to get the money out of his bank account before local tax authorities found out about it. The grand duchy is a preferred banking center for Germans trying to hide savings from taxation at home. Police said the man, who had been reported missing on Wednesday, was sent home in a taxi with his bicycle and the motorway was later reopened.
GERMANY
Kerry’s calls heard: report
Der Spiegel magazine reported on Sunday that Israel and at least one other intelligence agency were listening in on US Secretary of State John Kerry’s unsecured telephone calls last year when he was holding nearly daily negotiations for peace with various leaders in the Middle East. The magazine cited “several sources from intelligence circles” as saying that although Kerry has a secure phone at his mansion in Georgetown, while he was traveling and needed to make a quick phone call, he sometimes used an ordinary telephone that the intelligence agencies listened in on. “A large number of these conversations, which went via satellite, were listened to by at least two intelligence agencies, including the Israelis,” the magazine wrote. “It is probable that the Russians and Chinese were also listening in.”
UNITED STATES
Tortoise chase ends swiftly
At least officers did not have to issue a speeding ticket when they spotted a giant tortoise ambling down a street suburban Los Angeles. The Alhambra Police Department joked on Facebook that the 68kg reptile was captured on Saturday afternoon after a brief pursuit. “The tortoise did try to make a run for it; but, our officers are pretty fast,” the post said. It took two officers to heft the hard-shelled creature into a patrol car. They then took the reptile to the local police station before turning it over to animal control authorities. Giant tortoises are not indigenous to the Los Angeles area.
UNITED STATES
Eggnog test ends in blast
Authorities are investigating an explosion that originated in a vat of eggnog, damaged a pharmaceutical plant and caused minor injuries to two workers in New Jersey, local media said on Sunday. Two employees were mixing artificial eggnog flavorings in a laboratory at Pharmachem Laboratories in Totowo on Saturday night when the explosion occurred, Totowa Fire Marshal Allen Del Vecchio told WABC-TV Eyewitness News. They were trying out a new eggnog recipe, the station said, adding that the cause of the blast was undetermined. The explosion blew off the rear of the three-story plant and left glass scattered on the ground, WABC-TV reported.
UNITED STATES
Sexting teen given probation
A Virginia teenager has been given a year on probation in a sexting case. A judge on Friday placed the teen on probation and said he would consider dismissing the two child pornography counts against the teen if he stays out of trouble for a year. The case drew attention because police at one point sought to take pictures of the teen’s erect penis to prove the case against him. Police and prosecutors faced criticism, and police later said they would not seek the photos. Police wanted the pictures to compare against images he is accused of sending to his girlfriend, who was 15 at the time.
CANADA
PM unfollows Homer
Prime Minister Stephen Harper publicly distanced himself on Sunday from popular cartoon character Homer Simpson, whom he used to follow on Twitter. Harper, among the eminently predictable collection of conservative lawmakers, previously had among his followed accounts that of Homer Simpson, patriarch of the long-running animated family series of the same name, CBC reported. Not long after the story ran on CBC, @pmharper no longer counted Simpson among his Twitter interests, which now number 223.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
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