THAILAND
Tourist falls out of train, dies
An Irish national taking a tour in the west died on Tuesday after falling out of a moving train, police said. The man was identified as 45-year-old Patrick Ward, whose Irish passport said he was born in New Zealand. His current place of residence was not immediately known, but he entered the country on Monday on a tourist visa. Sai Yok Police Major Kiatisak Kerdchok said that according to witnesses, when the train slowed down at a scenic spot, Ward opened a door in the carriage and fell 7m to 8m down a slope. He did not confirm reports in Thai media that Ward was trying to take a selfie when the accident occurred just before noon. Police found Ward’s body at the scene with wounds, but none that suggested foul play. Kiatisak said a full autopsy would be conducted in Bangkok, and fellow members of the tour group questioned.
UNITED STATES
Militia leader sentenced
One of the two ringleaders of a far-right US militia group that plotted to kidnap and kill Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Tuesday was sentenced to 16 years in prison, the Department of Justice announced. Adam Fox, 39, was convicted alongside codefendant Barry Croft, 47, in August for conspiracy in planning the Democratic governor’s kidnapping and preparing to use weapons of mass destruction in the 2020 plot. He and several others in the militia, including an FBI informant, planned the attack on Whitmer in part as a response to her COVID-19 quarantine policies, but also, they had said, to start a civil war. The plot involved kidnapping Whitmer from her vacation cottage near Elk Rapids, Michigan, and using improvised bombs targeting security officers to help in their escape, the justice department said.
PAKISTAN
Five arrested for bombing
Authorities arrested five people suspected of involvement in a suicide car bombing last week that killed a police officer in the capital, Islamabad, Minister of the Interior Rana Sanaullah Khan said on Tuesday. The detainees included the suicide bomber’s handler, Khan wrote on Twitter. He said the attacker arrived in the garrison city of Rawalpindi from a former tribal area of Kurram. He did not disclose the identity of the detainees and no spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, which had claimed responsibility for the attack, was immediately available for comment. Initially, police and the government said the slain driver of the weaponized vehicle was also a suspect. Later, a probe into the attack concluded he was innocent as he did not know that militants were traveling in his car.
MEXICO
Avoid scam gifts: president
The president on Tuesday urged people not to be tricked by drug traffickers giving out Christmas gifts, after suspected cartel members were filmed handing out toys in a major city. Authorities said they had launched an investigation after images on social media showed alleged criminals distributing presents from trucks adorned with Christmas decorations to residents of Guadalajara. “Don’t let yourself be manipulated, even if they give you food. It’s not in good faith, but to use the people as a shield,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters. He said the gang members’ aim was to encourage residents to alert them so that, for example, “if cocaine is seized, the community comes out and protects the traffickers,” he said.
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
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