CHINA
Trial held to teach public
A court in Sichuan Province’s Langzhong City on Wednesday held an outdoor trial for eight migrant workers protesting against unpaid wages to “educate the public in law,” the state-run Beijing News reported yesterday. Chinese courts occasionally hold public trials involving criminal offenses, such as drug dealing and robbery, but such trials for labor offenses are rare. The workers were charged with obstructing police during a protest they staged last year to claim unpaid wages from their employer, a developer, the paper said. The eight were sentenced to between six and eight months in prison.
AUSTRALIA
‘Koala’ diplomacy slammed
The opposition Labor Party on Thursday launched a “Waste-pedia” booklet and Waste Watch Web site, accusing the government of over-lavish spending — including A$400,000 (US$305,154) on “koala and other marsupial-related events.” “This government is obsessed with hugging koalas. We’ve had A$400,000, which included [Foreign Minister] Julie Bishop paying A$133,000 to fly four koalas to Singapore Zoo,” opposition MP Pat Conroy said outside parliament. “She spent I think it was A$130,000 taking diplomats to Western Australia where they hugged wombats for a change — so at least they changed up the marsupial.” It was not immediately clear how the figures were reached.
ROMANIA
Village thanks Snoop Dogg
A small village in Transylvania is reveling in the virtual attention caused by a spelling mistake by US rapper Snoop Dogg. Posting a selfie on Instagram, the rapper, who has been on tour in Bogota, Colombia, told his fans he was in Bogata. Romanians soon spotted the mistake and began posting about it. A tourist Web site, visitbogata.com, also popped up, describing the village of 2,000 as the “best place for chillin’ in Romania.” There is no hotel in the village, so visitors are advised to bring a sleeping bag. If they get hungry they can feast on a twist of the famous Hungarian goulash. “It was a mistake, but it’s a good advert for us,” Bogata Mayor Laszlo Barta said yesterday.
KENYA
Escaped lion injures man
A lion strayed from a national park on the outskirts of the capital, Nairobi, mauling a 63-year-old man, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said. The man was hospitalized after the attack early yesterday on Mombasa Road and is now out of danger, spokesman Paul Udoto said by phone. Three KWS teams have “sighted the lion and are driving it back, deeper into the park,” he said. The incident comes about a month after six lions strayed from Nairobi National Park, sparking a similar search mission. The park is home to between 30 and 40 lions, Udoto said.
UNITED STATES
Ashton Carter criticizes Iran
US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said on Thursday that Iran might have violated international law when it seized 10 US sailors in the Persian Gulf in January. “Iran’s actions were outrageous, unprofessional and inconsistent with international law,” Carter said in a testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The sailors were detained after veering off course into Iranian territorial waters near Farsi Island, the home of an Iranian navy base, and were freed after about 14 hours. Video footage released by the Iranian government showed the sailors kneeling at gunpoint with their hands clasped behind their heads. At the time, Washington emphasized the sailors’ quick release, calling it a result of the diplomatic channels opened by the nuclear deal struck last year with Iran.
UNITED STATES
IS recruiter gets 22 years
A New York pizza shop owner who admitted he tried to recruit people for the Islamic State (IS) group has been sentenced to more than 22 years in prison. Mufid Elfgeeh was sentenced on Thursday. He pleaded guilty in December last year to attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization. Authorities said he tried to recruit three people to join the Islamic State to fight in Syria. He was operating a convenience store and pizza shop at the time.
GREECE
People traffickers arrested
Six suspected members of a trafficking network were arrested as they prepared to fly seven Iraqi migrants to Italy in a light aircraft, police said on Thursday. The gang of four were arrested in Messolonghi on Wednesday as a small Piper plane carrying the migrants, including four children, was about to take off. The migrants had been driven from Athens by the smugglers. “A criminal network was dismantled for illegally transferring the migrants from Greece to countries in western Europe on small aircraft,” police said in a statement. The network had successfully sent 12 groups of migrants to Italy, police said, adding that each passenger paid the smugglers between 4,500 and 7,500 euros (US$5,100 and US$8,500).
HAITI
Seven killed in tanker blast
At least seven people were killed and about 30 others seriously burned on Thursday in Haiti when a tanker truck belonging to the Total oil company caught fire and exploded. The accident took place in the town of Hinche, about 110km northeast of the capital Port-au-Prince. Witnesses said that the tanker hit a wall and spilled gasoline as it was getting in place to unload fuel at a Total service station. The flammable liquid spread and caught fire when it reached vendors cooking food on outdoor grills. The flames quickly returned to the tanker, which set off the explosion.
UNITED STATES
Chinese paper settles suit
The largest Chinese-language newspaper in the nation is to pay US$7.8 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it made reporters and others work up to 17 hours a day without overtime. The Chinese Daily News did not acknowledge any wrongdoing in the settlement, which was announced yesterday. Based in the Los Angeles, the paper has about 120,000 readers. Its employees, many of them Taiwanese, said they were expected to work long hours without rest, meal breaks or overtime pay.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
RSS