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.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
‘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
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all
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