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.
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
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