AUSTRALIA
Outrage over PM’s Nazi slur
Prime Minister Tony Abbott was criticized yesterday after referring to the opposition leader as the “Dr Goebbels of economic policy” in a rowdy parliamentary question time, sparking cries of “disgusting.” During a heated exchange about his economic credentials, Abbott said criticism coming from Labor was like “the arsonist complaining about the fire.” He went on to say opposition leader Bill Shorten was “the Dr Goebbels of economic policy,” likening him to Joseph Goebbels, minister for propaganda in Nazi Germany. Abbott quickly withdrew the remark, but not before the opposition erupted in anger, including shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus and lawmaker Michael Danby, both Jewish. “Slag us as much as you like, but it’s silly to use an example of the ultimate evil in politics. He is the prime minister, he’s supposed to have standards,” Danby said.
JAPAN
Amazon in child porn probe
Authorities are investigating a worker at Amazon over claims he was involved in the sale of child pornography, reports said yesterday. The unidentified man, reportedly in his 40s, posted a graphic picture book for sale that showed nude girls believed to be under the age of 18, Jiji Press news agency and the Asahi Shimbun reported, citing police sources. The temporary distribution worker, who was dispatched to work at Amazon Japan Logistics, an affiliate of the local arm of Amazon.com, was in charge of product management and distribution, the reports said. A customer who purchased the book online returned it and complained that the book appeared to be child pornography, but the employee relisted it on the online store, they added.
INDONESIA
Alleged murderer gives birth
A US teenager on trial in Bali over the murder of her mother, whose body was found stuffed in a suitcase, has given birth to a baby girl, a prison official said on Wednesday. Heather Mack, 19, who could be given the death penalty if found guilty of premeditated murder, was taken from Kerobokan jail on Bali to a hospital on Tuesday and gave birth in the evening, prison chief Sudjonggo said. The baby is in good health and Mack could return to the jail as early as yesterday, he said. “If no family members or other parties can look after the baby, the baby can be cared for in prison until she turns two,” he added. Prisoners in Kerobokan are reported to live in cramped, filthy conditions and drug abuse is widespread. Mack and her boyfriend, 21-year-old Tommy Schaefer, are facing separate trials in Bali over the murder of Sheila von Wiese Mack, 62, whose body was found stuffed in a suitcase in the trunk of a taxi outside a resort in Bali in August last year. Schaefer, who also faces the death penalty, confessed during a court appearance last week to killing his girlfriend’s mother, but argued he acted in self-defense after she attacked him.
DENMARK
Six arrested after shootout
Copenhagen police on Wednesday said they had arrested six men after a gang-related shootout in an underground car park of a shopping mall left two people injured. The men were between the ages of 19 and 26 and are linked to criminal gangs, police said in a statement. “The two groups met in the Field’s shopping center ... One group fled to the parking area, where there was gunfire between the groups and two people were hit. One of them is seriously injured,” police said. It was not clear how many shots were fired at the suburban shopping center near Copenhagen’s airport.
GERMANY
Varoufakis video faked: host
A TV presenter on Wednesday admitted to faking a video showing Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis giving the middle-finger gesture to Germany, after the politician vehemently contested its authenticity. Jan Bohermann, host of satirical program Neo Magazin Royale on public broadcaster ZDF, said he had been waiting since Sunday for someone to ask him if he had faked the controversial footage, but no one had questioned him. “Sorry Mr Varoufakis, we won’t do it again,” he said, detailing how a production team had manipulated the video. The footage showed Varoufakis before he became finance minister speaking at a 2013 event in the Croatian capital, Zagreb. In the doctored images Varoufakis talks about the problems facing his debt-laden country and says “stick the finger to Germany,” as he makes the offensive gesture.
UNITED STATES
Durst suicidal: authorities
Robert Durst, the real-estate scion charged with first-degree murder, is suicidal, according to statements released on Wednesday by Louisiana authorities after they moved him to a facility for inmates suffering from acute mental illness. Awaiting extradition to California, the 71-year-old was charged this week in Los Angeles County with killing longtime friend Susan Berman in 2000. He could face the death penalty if convicted. In law enforcement’s sights for decades, Durst has been the focus of investigations across the country. Three of his condominiums in Houston, Texas, were searched on Tuesday and there have also been investigations in northern California, where the disappearances of two teenagers in 1997 raised questions about his whereabouts at the time. The heir to a New York real-estate dynasty was arrested in New Orleans on Saturday last week with a handgun, marijuana, a fake ID and more than US$42,000 in cash, records show.
UNITED STATES
Man arrested over killings
An 18-year-old Burmese man has been arrested in connection with the stabbing deaths of three children in North Carolina, police said on Wednesday. Responding to a report of a person walking down the street with a knife, police disarmed Eh Lar Doh Htoo late on Tuesday at a house in New Bern, where they found the bodies of two of the victims. The third died as he was being taken to a hospital. The dead were brothers aged one, five and 12, and knew their assailant, police said. They were also of Burmese refugees.
MEXICO
Court orders inmate freed
The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release of a prisoner who had spent 23 years in jail for a double murder after it concluded he had confessed under torture. Alfonso Martin del Campo Dodd was in his 20s when he was sentenced in 1992 to 50 years in jail over the death of his sister and brother-in-law. The court said there had been no evidence against him except the confession it said had been obtained under torture by police. In throwing out the conviction the court acted on a decade-old recommendation from the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a panel that blamed the state for arbitrary arrest, torture and cruel treatment in this case. One of the reports issued by the commission said that 10 to 12 police had ganged up on Del Campo Dodd, placing a plastic bag over his head to suffocate him. He was also beaten severely in the stomach and head, and kicked in the testicles until he signed a confession for the crime.
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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