THAILAND
Man gets 20 for royal insult
A man was sentenced to 20 years in prison yesterday for uploading audio clips that insulted royal family members, his lawyer said. Tara, whose last name was withheld to protect his relatives, was convicted on six counts of lese majeste, according to his lawyer, Yaowalak Anuphan, and iLaw, a group that tracks royal defamation cases. He was detained in January 2015 for posting audio clips produced by “DJ Banpodj,” an underground podcast host known for fiery criticism of the monarchy. Later that year police claimed to have arrested the DJ and nearly a dozen others allegedly linked to the “Banpodj Network.” “Tara would take the links and upload the clips to his own Web site,” Yingcheep Atchanont from iLaw said. A Bangkok military court official confirmed the sentencing.
NEW ZEALAND
Politician quits over fraud
A Green Party co-leader has resigned three weeks after confessing she committed welfare fraud as a struggling young mother more than 20 years ago. Metiria Turei yesterday said the scrutiny on her family following her disclosure had become unbearable and she worried she was hindering her party’s chances six weeks ahead of an election. Polls indicate support for the Green Party has plummeted since Turei’s confession and the appointment last week of Jacinda Ardern as opposition leader. The Green Party is the nation’s third-largest party, with 12 seats in the 119-seat parliament. Turei made the confession as part of an attempt to energize debate about the difficulties of living on welfare. The Green Party will now run its campaign with a single leader, James Shaw.
INDIA
Killer elephant faces culling
An elephant that has killed 15 people over a months-long rampage could be shot within days if it is not brought under control, an official said yesterday. Wildlife rangers and hunters assembled in Jharkhand after another victim was trampled to death on Tuesday evening, the state’s chief forest and wildlife conservator L.R. Singh said. The elephant crushed four victims in Bihar state in March before crossing into neighboring Jharkhand and killing 11 more. “Villagers are living in fear, especially the Paharia tribe that lives on the upper hillier regions where the elephant roams. Something must be done,” Singh said. “We have a team of experts and hunters here with us. We are brainstorming a solution... one of them is to shoot the animal, but that’s the last resort and we will take a call in a day or two.”
CHINA
‘Auntie gang’ jailed
Members of an “auntie gang” of debt collectors have been jailed over a reign of gray terror in which they menaced victims and even stripped naked to get them to cough up, state media said on Tuesday. Fourteen of the senior enforcers received jail sentences of up to 11 years after being convicted of “organizing, leading and participating in gangster-like organisations, and for their provocative and disturbing behavior,” Beijing News said. About 30 women with an average age of 50 — some of whom had met while engaging in the common elderly pastime of dancing in public squares — took part in the scheme in Shangqiu, Henan Province. The sentences were handed down last month after a four-year spree in which the accused — hired by a property developer and firms that wanted debts paid — used strong-arm tactics to collect the money or forced people from their homes to make way for big construction projects.
VENEZUELA
Man killed at airport
A traveler on Tuesday was shot to death at the ticket counter of the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas. An airport security video circulating on social media shows another man with a handbag walk past a group of bystanders and shoot at the victim before fleeing on foot. Authorities said they were investigating, but gave no details other than to say the victim was from the Dominican Republic. Local media reported the dead man was a lawyer and was waiting for a connecting flight to the western city of Maracaibo after arriving from the Dominican Republic. An employee of local airline La Venezolana was also shot in the arm.
UNITED STATES
Baby whale visits California
Southern California beachgoers have gotten up close and personal with a baby whale. A gray whale about 4.57m to 5.48m long cruised into Dana Point Harbor on Tuesday morning. It swam into a shallow children’s area called Baby Beach and circled a pier. Kayakers got within a few meters of the animal, which at one point swam under paddleboarders. Dave Anderson, who runs whale watching tours out of the harbor, said the whale appeared to be a skinny juvenile who was foraging in the mud. It was probably the same whale that was spotted on Monday farther south in a Carlsbad lagoon, Anderson said. The whale eventually left the harbor. Anderson said it might be moving up the coast and could find its way to Oregon.
UNITED STATES
Mormon leader ousted
The Mormon church on Tuesday excommunicated one of its senior leaders without providing a reason for the rare dismissal. The removal of James Hamula as a “general authority” of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the first time a top leader had been ousted in nearly 30 years, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. Church spokesman Eric Hawkins said in a statement that the decision was taken “following church disciplinary action,” but added it “will not discuss the proceedings of a disciplinary council.” The statement alluded to a sermon that said: “The desired result is that the person will make whatever changes are necessary to return fully and completely to be able to receive the marvelous blessings of the church.”
UNITED STATES
DNA left in toilet
A man accused of burglarizing a southern California home took a bathroom break and left DNA evidence in the toilet that led to his arrest, an investigator said on Tuesday. The suspect “did his business and didn’t flush it” during a break-in in October last year in the city of Thousand Oaks, Ventura County Sheriff’s Office detective Tim Lohman said. That allowed investigators to collect evidence to conduct a DNA profile. It matched another profile in a national database and detectives tracked down the suspect at his home in nearby Ventura. Andrew David Jensen was arrested on July 28 on suspicion of first-degree residential burglary, a felony.
YEMEN
Blood bank lacks funds
The national blood bank might be forced to close due to a lack of money after an international medical charity ended two years of support, National Blood Transfusion Center director Adnan al-Hakimi said. The crisis emerged after Medecins Sans Frontieres informed the bank it was suspending its aid. However, the WHO said it was trying to help by sending further supplies.
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
French police on Monday arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of murder after an 11-year-old girl was found dead in a wood south of Paris over the weekend in a killing that sparked shock and a massive search for clues. The girl, named as Louise, was found stabbed to death in the Essonne region south of Paris in the night of Friday to Saturday, police said. She had been missing since leaving school on Friday afternoon and was found just a few hundred meters from her school. A police source, who asked not to be named, said that she had been
VIOLENCE: The teacher had depression and took a leave of absence, but returned to the school last year, South Korean media reported A teacher stabbed an eight-year-old student to death at an elementary school in South Korea on Monday, local media reported, citing authorities. The teacher, a woman in her 40s, confessed to the crime after police officers found her and the young girl with stab wounds at the elementary school in the central city of Daejeon on Monday evening, the Yonhap news agency reported. The girl was brought to hospital “in an unconscious state, but she later died,” the report read. The teacher had stab wounds on her neck and arm, which officials determined might have been self-inflicted, the news agency
ISSUE: Some foreigners seek women to give birth to their children in Cambodia, and the 13 women were charged with contravening a law banning commercial surrogacy Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday thanked Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni for granting a royal pardon last year to 13 Filipino women who were convicted of illegally serving as surrogate mothers in the Southeast Asian kingdom. Marcos expressed his gratitude in a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, who was visiting Manila for talks on expanding trade, agricultural, tourism, cultural and security relations. The Philippines and Cambodia belong to the 10-nation ASEAN, a regional bloc that promotes economic integration but is divided on other issues, including countries whose security alignments is with the US or China. Marcos has strengthened