■THAILAND
PM talks to protesters
Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat said yesterday he had opened a dialogue with protesters who have been occupying his official compound for three weeks, in a bid to end a campaign that has alarmed investors. Somchai, a brother-in-law of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, declined to discuss details of what he had said to leaders of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, but said he was optimistic there would be positive results. “We all are Thais and we should not hate each other for ever. Our differences on ideas can be ironed out through dialogue,” Somchai told reporters.
■SINGAPORE
Suspect in killings nabbed
Police arrested a 42-year-old man on suspicion of killing three women and wounding a fourth in a stabbing attack early yesterday, a rare spasm of violence in the tightly controlled city-state. Police said in a statement that two knives were found at the scene of the attack, an apartment complex in the Yishun neighborhood. They said the suspect and victims are of Chinese descent, but couldn’t confirm if they were Singaporeans or Chinese nationals.
■NEPAL
Bus crash kills 14
A bus rolled off a mountain highway and crashed into a river yesterday, killing at least 14 people and injuring 25 others, police said. The bus plummeted 180m down the mountainside before slamming into the river in Mahadev Beshi village, about 160km west of Kathmandu, police official Thakur Prasad Poudel said. The injured were taken to hospitals in nearby towns, and police and soldiers were searching the river for other victims, Poudel said. Initial reports suggested the driver lost control of the vehicle.
■SRI LANKA
Military, rebels claim win
Soldiers and sailors killed 63 Tamil Tiger rebels on a second day of fierce combat in the northern part of the country, the military said yesterday. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said they had repulsed an army advance, killed 25 troops and wounded 40 in Vannirakulam, the site of heavy fighting for weeks, a pro-rebel Web site quoted unnamed rebel officials as saying. There was no independent confirmation of the casualties from Thursday’s battles, which followed one of the single bloodiest days of fighting since the military cranked up an offensive drive three months ago. At least 71 were killed on Wednesday.
■HONG KONG
Wild boar shot dead
A wild boar was shot dead after going on a five-hour rampage during which it injured three people and kept trapping teams at bay, police said yesterday. The 120kg boar was fighting with two dogs in rural Yuen Long near the border with China when it burst into a village house on Thursday afternoon. It bit a father and son aged 76 and 54 as they tried to drive it out of the house and injured a neighbor who tried to help, a police spokesman said.
■INDIA
Headmistress locks up kids
A headmistress of a primary school locked 350 pupils in a classroom for 10 hours without food or water because she found money was missing from her bag, the Hindustan Times reported yesterday. The imprisoned pupils were eventually freed by their parents, who broke open the doors when they heard them screaming, it said. Nearly a dozen pupils fainted during the ordeal in the school in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The report said the headmistress had been suspended.
■UNITED KINGDOM
J.K. Rowling wins honor
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been honored for her services to the Scottish city in which she dreamed up adventures for her world-famous boy wizard. Judges said yesterday that Rowling was the unanimous choice to receive the 2008 Edinburgh Award, in recognition of her contributions to Scotland’s capital. Rowling said she was honored. “Edinburgh is very much home for me and is the place where Harry evolved over seven books and many, many hours of writing in its cafes,” Rowling said. Edinburgh’s ceremonial head, Lord Provost George Grubb, said Rowling was “a tremendous asset to the city, not least for her writing prowess but also for her philanthropy and the vast amount of support she gives to numerous charities.”
■SOUTH AFRICA
Arms firm charges dropped
Prosecutors said on Thursday they would provisionally withdraw charges against a French arms company connected with the corruption case against ANC leader Jacob Zuma, thrown out by a judge last week. “We will have to provisionally withdraw,” SAPA news agency quoted National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesman Tlali Tlali as saying. Tlali said the decision was taken because French company Thint was co-accused with Zuma. A judge threw out Zuma’s case and said there had been high-level meddling in it. The NPA will challenge that judgement.
■CROATIA
Professors, official detained
Police detained almost 100 people, including the country’s top anti-corruption official and 21 university professors, in what reports yesterday described as the country’s largest-ever crackdown on graft. About 300 officers raided more than 100 homes, offices and cars on Thursday in an operation targeting corrupt teachers selling university diplomas. Teachers were allegedly charging the equivalent of US$13,000 to enroll students who failed to qualify, then US$600 to US$3,000 to squeeze them through exams.
■SPAIN
Basque party banned
The Supreme Court has banned a Basque nationalist party. The court outlawed the Communist Party of the Basque Lands on the grounds that it is a tool of Batasuna, the banned political wing of the armed separatist organization ETA. The move announced on Thursday night means the government will shut down the party’s offices and seize its assets. The nine party members who hold seats in the Basque regional parliament will retain them, but be stripped of their party affiliation. Earlier this week the court outlawed another Basque party and an advocacy group for jailed ETA members.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Blair nervous about Yale
Former prime minister Tony Blair said he was “a bit nervous” about starting a teaching post yesterday at Yale University in the US. “I’m sort of a bit nervous for it, really,” he told the Yale Daily News. “I was never a star student and I’m coming along mixing with a whole lot of people who I’m sure are a whole lot more clever and smarter than I am.” At Yale, Blair is to lead a semester-long “faith and globalization” seminar. The course is to explore the issues concerning the public roles of religious faiths in the context of globalization. Hundreds of students applied to take it, the paper said. Blair is the representative of the Middle East Quartet of mediators — consisting of the US, Russia, the UN and the EU.
■UNITED STATES
Disney gives free tickets
Walt Disney Co said on Thursday its US parks will offer free tickets to parkgoers on their birthdays next year to capitalize on a consumer trend for marking important life events with vacations. The Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts will also offer new park experiences geared to the celebration theme, including street parties, video dance parties and barbecues, the company said. Holders of annual passes can receive other incentives, such as FastPass tickets for rides, which cut down the time spent waiting in lines, or a “birthday fun card” of a value equivalent to a free admission ticket.
■BRAZIL
Da Silva supports gay union
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has come out in favor of same-sex unions. Lula says that, “there are men living with men, and women living with women” who “build a good life together.” But a proposed law that would give all same-sex couples rights equal to those enjoyed by married heterosexuals has been stalled in Congress for more than a decade. Lula said in an interview aired late on Wednesday night by the government-run TV Brasil that politicians who oppose same-sex unions and yet seek the votes of gay men and women during elections are “hypocrites.”
■MEXICO
Prison riot claims 20
More than 20 inmates died and several dozen were wounded in riots in an overcrowded prison in Tijuana this week, police said on Thursday. Violence first broke out on Sunday during family visiting hours in the La Mesa jail after a prisoner died inside, apparently abused by guards, a human rights inspector said. Four inmates died in the clashes and another 19 were killed in new rioting on Wednesday. Police said the prisoners used firearms, but no security officials died in the clashes. The jail, built for around 3,000 people, was packed with more than 8,000, and family members claimed prisoners lived in dire conditions.
■CANADA
Astronomers misguided
Astronomers searching for solar systems capable of supporting life may be looking in the wrong places, says a new study that suggests our sun is far from its origins in the galaxy. Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle, the University of Central Lancashire in Britain and Hamilton, and McMaster University in Ontario built a computer model that simulated the movement of stars within the Milky Way over 9 billion years. The simulation, which took 100,000 hours of computer time to run, found that stars do not remain in the same orbit around a galaxy’s center, as was believed, but instead migrate from the center to its spiral arms or outer reaches. Therefore, astronomers who rely on the position of our sun in their search for regions of the galaxy where life exists must broaden their search.
■GERMANY
US soldier pleads guilty
A US soldier who admitted involvement in the shooting of detainees in Iraq early last year has been sentenced to seven months in jail and will be dishonorably discharged, the army said on Thursday after a court martial at a base in Grafenwoehr. Specialist Belmor Ramos, 23, pleaded guilty at a court martial to charges of conspiracy to commit premeditated murder. He agreed to testify in the trials of other soldiers involved, the army said in a statement. Ramos was present when four unarmed, handcuffed and blindfolded Iraqi detainees were allegedly shot dead in Baghdad in March or April last year.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
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