ASIA
Record meth seizures: UN
A record 190 tonnes of methamphetamine was seized in East and Southeast Asia last year, as organized crime groups boosted production, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said yesterday in its annual report on synthetic drugs in the region. Drug trafficking has affected Southeast Asia for decades, with Shan state in Myanmar the leading source of synthetic drugs in the region. Much of it is produced in illegal labs in areas controlled by ethnic minority armed groups near the border with Thailand, a major transit route. The UN office said that drug gangs are changing their recipes to increase their output. “Organized crime groups are lowering the production costs and scaling up production by using non-controlled chemicals,” UNODC Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific Masood Karimipour said in a statement. Greater production is enabling bigger shipments which are driving down prices, he said.
PERU
Boluarte accused of bribery
Attorney General Juan Carlos Villena on Monday accused President Dina Boluarte of accepting bribes in the form of Rolex watches. Villena “presented a constitutional complaint against Dina Boluarte as the suspected author of passive corruption,” his office wrote on X. The scandal erupted in March with the discovery of a trove of undeclared luxury Rolex watches and jewelry in the president’s possession. Boluarte last month told prosecutors the watches had been loaned by a friend, Ayacucho Governor Wilfredo Oscorima. She is being investigated on suspicion of “passive corruption” for receiving improper benefits from public officials. The attorney general’s accusation, presented to Congress, does not amount to an indictment, because the president has immunity while in power. A congressional committee must now debate the accusation before the whole chamber does so. Ultimately, it would be up to the courts to decide whether to put her on trial after her term ends in July 2026.
UNITED STATES
Slingshot ‘terror’ arrested
An 81-year-old man who investigators say terrorized a southern California neighborhood for years with a slingshot has been arrested, police said. While conducting an investigation, detectives “learned that during the course of 9-10 years, dozens of citizens were being victimized by a serial slingshot shooter,” the Azusa Police Department said in a statement. The man is suspected of breaking windows and car windshields, and of narrowly missing people with ball bearings shot from a slingshot, the statement said. No injuries were reported. The man was arrested on Thursday after officers served a search warrant and found a slingshot and ball bearings at his home in Azusa, police said.
AUSTRALIA
Naked runner arrested
A man accused of running naked down the aisle of a domestic flight, knocking down a flight attendant and forcing the plane to turn back, was arrested by police at the airport, officials said yesterday. The incident happened early in a Virgin Australia flight on Monday night from Perth to Melbourne. Flight VA696 returned to Perth airport due to a “disruptive passenger,” an airline statement said. Australian Federal Police officers were waiting for the plane and “the disruptive guest was offloaded,” Virgin said. “The man was transferred to hospital for assessment, where he remains,” a police statement said. Police expect to order the man by summons to appear in a Perth court on June 14.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
RSS