UNITED STATES
Trafficking sanctions waived
President Barack Obama has decided not to impose sanctions against Malaysia and Thailand for failing to meet minimum standards in combating human trafficking. In June, the two Southeast Asian nations were downgraded in the Department of State’s annual assessment of how governments around the world have performed in fighting the flesh trade and other forms of exploitative labor. The president can block various types of aid for governments that are blacklisted. However, Washington often chooses not to, based on its national security interests.
SWEDEN
Rape ruling overturned
A man who had sex with a woman while he was asleep was acquitted of rape because he suffers from “sexsomnia,” according to a court ruling obtained on Thursday. The 26-year-old man did not have “the intention” to have sex, the Sundsvall appeal court said, as it overruled the previous two-year-prison sentence. The argument that the defendant “was in a state of sleepiness, unconscious of what was happening, does not seem absurd,” the court said in its judgement, issued on Sept. 8. The decision was mainly motivated by the intervention of a doctor specializing in sleep disorders who said that the defendant could suffer from sexsomnia, a state in which a person can have sex while asleep.
INDONESIA
US man confesses to murder
Police say a US man has confessed that he killed his girlfriend’s mother in a Bali hotel and the girlfriend has acknowledged helping him stuff the body into a suitcase.Heather Mack, 19, and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, 21, both from Chicago, were arrested in Bali on Aug. 13, a day after the body of Sheila von Wiese-Mack was found in a suitcase inside the trunk of a taxi at the St Regis Bali Resort. Police chief Colonel Djoko Heru Utomo said yesterday that Schaefer confessed during an interrogation on Monday and that Mack acknowledged her role in separate questioning later this week.
CHINA
Liu Tienan trial to begin
A court will next week try a former deputy head of the nation’s top planning agency on corruption charges, state media said yesterday, after allegations against him were posted online and as the government pursues a high-profile campaign to root out graft. Liu Tienan (劉鐵男) was sacked in May last year. Luo Changping (羅昌平), deputy editor-in-chief of the investigative magazine Caijing, posted accusations online in late 2012 that Liu was involved in a number of illegal activities. Liu’s trial will open on Wednesday in Langfang in the northern province of Hebei, close to Beijing, the China News Service said. Liu is accused of abusing his government positions and taking bribes, the state prosecutor said in June.
PHILIPPINES
Military withdraws troops
The military says the bulk of peacekeepers have pulled out two weeks early from the UN mission in the Golan Heights due to escalating fighting in the region. Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ramon Zagala said 244 troops will arrive in Manila on a UN-chartered plane on Friday. A smaller batch of 85 soldiers will arrive on Sunday from the Golan Heights, ending a five-year peacekeeping role that has been marred by Syrian rebel kidnappings and attacks. Zagala said the long-planned withdrawal is not connected with differences between security officials and the UN peacekeeping force commander over a hostage crisis involving the troops in the area.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
Separatists in Alberta are preparing to submit a petition tomorrow that they said has enough signatures to force a referendum on independence for the oil-rich Canadian province. Polls indicate the pro-independence camp remains a minority among Alberta’s 5 million people, but has hit a historic high of roughly 30 percent. Alberta separatists are also closer than ever to forcing a referendum, riding momentum fueled by intensifying grievances over Ottawa’s control of the provincial oil industry. They have also undeniably gotten a boost from the return to power of US President Donald Trump. After launching a petition in January, Stay Free Alberta, the group
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