AUSTRALIA
Drug van hits police car
Police have charged a driver after methamphetamine with an estimated street value of more than A$200 million (US$140 million) was found in a van that crashed into police cars parked outside a Sydney police station. A police statement yesterday said a Toyota HiAce van hit the cars outside the Eastwood Police Station on Monday morning, causing significant damage to one car, but injuring no one. Police stopped a van in a nearby suburb about an hour later, arrested a 28-year-old man and seized 273kg of crystal meth. The man was charged with supplying a commercial quantity of drugs, negligent driving and not giving his details to police. He was refused bail.
INDONESIA
Two Australians arrested
Two Australian men have been arrested with cocaine on Bali and could face long prison terms if convicted, police said yesterday. William Cabantog and David van Iersel were paraded at a police news conference in handcuffs and leg shackles. A police statement said they were arrested on Friday at the Lost City Club in the island’s trendy Canggu neighborhood with 1.12g of cocaine. It said Cabantog, 36, and Van Iersel, 38, each face prison sentences ranging from four to 12 years if they are convicted. According to police, Cabantog, who was described as a hospitality consultant, was well known for circulating cocaine in Canggu. The Lost City Club was managed by Van Iersel. No other information was immediately available on any court appearance or defense for the two men.
MOROCCO
Lawmakers back French
Lawmakers on Monday evening passed a draft law that would pave the way for strengthening the place of French in Moroccan schools, overturning decades of Arabization. The legislation was adopted in the lower house by 241-4, with 21 abstentions. Most members of the mainly Islamist co-ruling PJD and conservative Istiqlal lawmakers abstained from voting on the articles stipulating the use of French as a language of instruction. The text will enter into force after a second reading in the upper house and its publication in the official bulletin. The nation’s official languages are Arabic and Amazigh, or Berber. Most people speak Moroccan Arabic — a mixture of Arabic and Amazigh infused with French and Spanish influences. However, French reigns supreme in business, government and higher education, giving those who can afford to be privately schooled in French a huge advantage over most other students.
UNITED STATES
New York bans declawing
New York on Monday became the first US state to ban the declawing of cats, a practice already illegal in several countries and condemned as cruel by animal rights activists. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill outlawing the removal of cats’ claws for cosmetic reasons with immediate effect, in a move hailed by cat lovers. The legislation had been passed by the state assembly last month. “Declawing is a cruel and painful procedure that can create physical and behavioral problems for helpless animals, and today it stops,” Cuomo said in a statement. “By banning this archaic practice, we will ensure that animals are no longer subjected to these inhumane and unnecessary procedure.” Declawing is an operation that involves the entire or partial amputation of bones in a cat’s front feet. The practice is common in the nation, where pet owners often do it to stop themselves from being scratched or to protect their furniture.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
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