CHINA
Crimewave blamed on drugs
An increase in the smuggling of synthetic drugs like methamphetamine from Southeast Asia has fueled a rise in violent crime in the nation this year, a state-run newspaper reported yesterday. In the first nine months of the year, police recorded more than 100 incidents of violent crime blamed on methamphetamine, more than the total number seen in the previous five years, Liu said. “China is facing a grim task in curbing synthetic drugs, including ‘ice,’ which more and more of China’s drug addicts tend to use,” the official China Daily quoted Liu Yuejin (劉躍進), head of the public security ministry’s Narcotics Control Bureau, as saying, referring to the street name for methamphetamine. “Compared with traditional drugs, such as heroine and opium, methamphetamine can easily lead to mental problems,” Liu added. “Addicts will be prone to extreme and violent behavior, including murder and kidnapping.” Methamphetamine was being smuggled into China’s southwestern province of Yunnan and region of Guangxi, both of which border Southeast Asia, the newspaper said.
CHINA
Japanese star mourned
The nation yesterday mourned the death of Japanese film star Ken Takakura, in a rare expression of cultural affinity between the Asian rivals. Takakura, best-known in the West for his role as a tough detective in Ridley Scott’s Black Rain, came to prominence in China when Japanese movies were allowed into the country in the late 1970s. He died last week of lymphoma at the age of 83, reports said on Tuesday, after a decades-long acting career dotted with starring roles, often as a mobster or a police officer or other strong, silent types enduring hardship in the pursuit of justice. “Ken Takakura is a witness to the history of friendship between the Chinese and Japanese people,” one user wrote on microblogging Web site Sina Weibo. Others hailed him as “Japan’s last tough guy” and “a Japanese national treasure who loves China.” Xinhua news agency on Tuesday described Takakura as an actor who “helped redefine the image Chinese males hoped to obtain for an entire generation,” adding that Takakura’s 1976 hit Manhunt was among the first Japanese films to be screened in the nation after the Cultural Revolution.
THAILAND
Police search for Uighurs
Authorities on Tuesday said they were searching for about 120 ethnic Uighurs who fled China and were detained in the south by police earlier this year, but escaped this month from a shelter there. The escapees, almost all women and children, left the shelter in several separate groups this month; 21 have been found, leaving an additional 120 or so at large, said Major General Puthishart Aekkashal, deputy police chief of a region in Songkhla Province, where the migrants were initially detained in March. At the time, authorities took into custody 198 Uighurs who had entered the nation voluntarily, the officer said.
JAPAN
Man arrested over dead dogs
Police have arrested a former pet shop worker for allegedly abandoning 80 dogs, dead and alive, in the countryside, officials and reports said yesterday. Masaki Kimura, 39, admitted that he had been paid ￥1 million (US$8,500) by a breeder to dispose of the miniature dachshunds, toy poodles and corgies. He gave them no food or water, Jiji Press reported, and all but eight of the animals died in the wooden crates he was using to transport them.
MEXICO
Pena Nieto defends mansion
President Enrique Pena Nieto on Tuesday defended his wife’s controversial purchase of a mansion owned by a government contractor, saying the former soap opera star would provide her own public explanation. A visibly irate Pena Nieto lashed out at a report of a house purchase that has raised ethical questions about his administration, saying the information was full of “falsehoods.” As he left on a six-day trip to China and Australia last week, the news Web site Aristegui Noticias reported that the property was owned by a firm linked to a Chinese-led consortium that recently won a lucrative bullet train contract. The president abruptly revoked the train contract on Nov. 6, just three days after it was awarded to the sole bidder, a Chinese-Mexican group headed by China Railway Construction Corp.
HONDURAS
Search for Ms Honduras on
Officials combed valleys and mountains on Tuesday in a desperate search for the reigning Miss Honduras, Maria Jose Alvarado, who was abducted days before she was to compete in the Miss World contest. Alvarado, 19, and her sister, Sofia Trinidad, disappeared on Thursday last week outside Santa Barbara after a birthday party at a local resort. Police spokesman Jose Coello said officers were scouring river valleys and mountains near the Guatemalan border looking for any trace of the sisters. Alvarado had been set to fly to London yesterday for Miss World.
UNITED STATES
Hundreds of rapes ignored
The mayor of New Orleans says hundreds of rape and child abuse cases that went largely ignored by five police detectives over a three-year period will be reopened and thoroughly investigated. Mayor Mitch Landrieu on Tuesday said that a special team of police officers would reopen hundreds of mishandled cases uncovered by a city inspector general’s audit that was released last week. The report charged that five detectives failed to do substantial investigation of more than 1,000 sex crimes and child abuse cases. It found that the detectives classified 65 percent of the cases they received as “miscellaneous,” for which no report at all was written. The inspectors said those cases could not be examined due to the “total void of information.”
MEXICO
Marines kill cartel hitman
Marines have killed the chief enforcer of the Knights Templar in the western state of Michoacan, a federal official said on Tuesday, dealing a fresh blow to the drug cartel. Jose Julio Mendoza Roman, alias “El Parotas,” was considered one of the men closest to the cartel’s fugitive leader, said Alfredo Castillo, the government’s special security envoy to Michoacan. Mendoza Roman, 36, and another hitman were killed in a shootout with marines on Saturday after gang suspects fired at a military helicopter that had landed in the town of Tumbiscatio to arrest them, Castillo said.
ITALY
Mafia initiation filmed
Secret mafia initiation rites have been caught on camera for the first time by police, who on Tuesday arrested 40 suspected gangsters in raids in the north. The arrests, on charges of criminal association, illegal arms sales and extortion, followed a two-year investigation using wiretaps and hidden cameras in locations known to be frequented by mobsters, police said. “For the first time the swearing-in ceremonies have been recorded live,” Milan prosecutor Ilda Boccassini said at a press conference following the raids.
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
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
‘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
‘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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