PHILIPPINES
Villager kills father-in-law
Officials said a villager has shot and killed his father-in-law and three children over a dowry feud. The attack happened early yesterday in the remote town of Banguigui in Sulu Province, a group of islands in the south, police said. The attacker was abandoned by his wife, prompting him to demand that her family return the dowry he had given her parents, but the parents failed to comply immediately, police said. The gunman escaped.
BANGLADESH
Fugitive cricketer remanded
Fugitive cricketer Shahadat Hossain was remanded in jail yesterday shortly after he surrendered to a court over allegations of beating his 11-year-old maid, his lawyer said. Hossain, who has played 38 Tests for the nation, went into hiding more than three weeks ago after police sought his arrest for allegedly abusing the girl he employed illegally in his home. The cricketer was suspended from all forms of the game on Sept. 13 over the allegations. “Shahadat surrendered to the court today. We will now take action in accordance to the directives of the court,” Inspector Shafiqur Rahman told reporters. The court in Dhaka later remanded the cricketer in jail after denying his request for bail, his lawyer Arif Rahman told reporters. He surrendered to the court one day after his wife, Nritto Shahadat, was arrested on Sunday at her parents’ home in Dhaka. Shahadat, who denied wrongdoing, was also taken into custody after a court denied her bail. Both face charges of assaulting a child and employing a minor. Police raided the couple’s house last month after the maid, Mahfuza Akter Happy, was found crying in a street in the capital. She has told police and local media that the couple beat and tortured her, while television footage showed her looking frail and thin with swollen black eyes. Police have said one of her hands had been burnt with a hot cooking paddle, while other injury marks were also found on her body.
AUSTRALIA
Military vehicles ordered
The nation yesterday said it would buy 1,100 light-armored vehicles from French defense and electronics firm Thales SA for A$1.3 billion (US$920.63 million). Thales Australia won a competitive international tender with its locally designed and built Hawkei patrol vehicle, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in a statement, a boon for the struggling manufacturing industry in the state of Victoria. The Hawkei is to replace the heavier Bushmaster, also made by Thales in the nation, and is to be the only vehicle in the Defence Force that can be transported by helicopter, according to the prime minister’s statement. Full production of the Hawkei is due to begin in 2018, with pilot production beginning early next year. The fact that the new vehicle was lighter than the Bushmaster should give it “enormous potential” in the export market, Defence Minister Marise Payne said at a contract signing ceremony.
UNITED STATES
‘Deadheads’ celebrate
Members of the Grateful Dead and John Mayer are giving away 10,000 free tickets to their concert next month. The veteran band and Mayer, who joined forces for the supergroup Dead & Company this summer, announced yesterday that 5,000 fans are to have a chance to win two tickets each to their Nov. 7 show. The group has partnered with American Express for its music series, American Express Unstaged at Madison Square Garden in New York. Fans can enter to win tickets yesterday through Thursday on Dead & Company’s Web site.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
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