THAILAND
Police arrest released killer
Police yesterday arrested convicted serial killer Somkid Pumpuang in connection with another murder after his early release from jail for good behavior, authorities said. Authorities distributed his photograph under the heading “Most Wanted” and offered a 50,000 baht (US$1,654) reward for information leading to his capture. Photographs released yesterday showed police officers detaining the suspect on a train in the town of Pakchong in Nakhon Ratchasima Province. Local media described how a passenger on the train spotted the suspect wearing a cap and face mask, and sent his photograph to police.
INDIA
Large gatherings banned
Authorities yesterday imposed an emergency law banning large gatherings in parts of New Delhi after 12 police officers were injured in protests against a contentious new citizenship law. Clashes across the country following the passage of legislation that fast-tracks citizenship for non-Muslims from three neighboring countries have claimed six lives. Police banned gatherings of more than four people in some Muslim-dominated areas in the megacity’s northeast. “In view of the protests on Tuesday prohibitory orders have been issued,” a police official said. Police fired tear gas after thousands of protesters threw stones and set fire to at least two buses and a police outpost in Delhi’s Seelampur District. At least 21 people, including 12 police, were injured in the clashes.
UNITED KINGDOM
Court sentences rapist to life
A former taxi driver believed to have sexually assaulted more than 100 women and already in prison for a dozen attacks on Tuesday received a life sentence after pleading guilty to attacking four more women. John Worboys, who has been dubbed the “black cab rapist,” was serving a prison term for a 2009 conviction involving 12 women when the additional four came forward last year with detailed accusations against him. According to information presented at his sentencing hearing in London, Worboys admitted to a psychologist that he had plied 90 women with alcohol and drugged a quarter of them after being inspired by pornography.
AUSTRIA
Ballet school abuse probed
Vienna’s prestigious ballet academy is endangering children’s well-being, including by encouraging them to smoke to stay slim, an commission probing abuse claims said on Tuesday. The scandal broke in April when a media report accused the academy at Vienna’s renowned State Opera of inflicting serious physical and mental abuse on its students, as well as of sexual assault. A government-backed special commission confirmed students received insufficient medical care, and also found a general “disregard” for child welfare. Commission head Susanne Reindl-Krauskopf said that students were advised to start smoking to stay slim, and addressed by their first names and clothes sizes.
UNITED STATES
Ukraine envoy to step down
Acting ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor, whose appearance in Congress built the Democrats’ case for impeaching President Donald Trump, is to step down at the end of the year, officials said. Taylor’s tenure is scheduled finish with the end of the year under terms of the Vacancies Act, in which appointees in an acting position without US Senate confirmation can only serve 200 days, an official said.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate