■THAILAND
Sister wants justice
The sister of an Italian photographer killed as troops forcibly suppressed an anti-government protest in Bangkok has asked the government to work harder to clear up the circumstances of his death. Isabella Polenghi said she especially would like to recover the camera carried by her brother, Fabio Polenghi, which disappeared sometime after he was shot on May 19. It’s not known who killed him: Both government soldiers and a small number of protesters were armed. “I want to know what he saw that day [before he was killed],” Isabella Polenghi told a news conference on Friday. “We want to get to the truth, to the bottom of things.”
■MALAYSIA
Muslim cleared of attack
A court has cleared a Muslim man accused of firebombing a church, reports said yesterday, one of a spate of attacks on places of worship that escalated ethnic tensions. Eleven churches were attacked with Molotov cocktails, stones and paint in violence earlier this year in Muslim-majority Malaysia, triggered by a ruling that overturned a ban on non-Muslims using “Allah” as a translation for “God.” Azuwan Shah Ahmad and two brothers are the first to face the courts in connection with the attacks. They were charged over the firebombing of a church in Kuala Lumpur on Jan. 7. “There is insufficient evidence to link Azuwan Shah Ahmad, 23, to the offense,” Sessions Court judge S.M. Komathy Suppiah said in acquitting him on Friday, according to the Star newspaper.
■SOUTH KOREA
N Korean mines wash south
Heavy rains washed eight anti-personnel mines from North to South Korea in the past week, a military spokesman said yesterday. The landmines in wooden casings were found off three islets in the Yellow Sea, near the western inter-Korean border, the Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman said. “All the landmines were disposed of safely,” he said, adding that the mines must have been washed downstream by rainwater. Following a tip-off from a fisherman, the military and police found the mines after a search off Jumun Island and two nearby islands late on Friday, the spokesman said.
■PHILIPPINES
Lack of pilots cancels flights
Good morning, passengers, and welcome aboard. We’re expecting clear skies today, but we’re out of pilots. National air carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) had to cancel at least five flights yesterday after several Airbus A320 pilots decamped for jobs abroad. PAL spokesman Jonathan Gesmundo went on TV and radio stations to apologize to the public for the cancellations, which he said were caused by the sudden departure of nearly a dozen pilots for better-paying jobs overseas. He said the pilots did not inform the management, but that this was not a group action.
■INDIA
Mom of dead teen testifies
The mother of a British teenager, whose body was found on a popular beach in Goa in 2008, told a court on Friday police initially tried to convince her that her daughter drowned. The bruised and partially clothed body of Scarlett Keeling, 15, was discovered on a beach. Police initially said Keeling drowned because she was drunk, but pressure from her family forced a second autopsy that indicated she was likely killed and may also have been raped. A visibly upset Fiona MacKeown told the court she did not believe her daughter drowned because she was a good swimmer.
■IRAN
Quake injures 170
An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.7 hit the country’s northeast, injuring about 170 people, state radio reported yesterday. The tremor hit the city of Torbat-e Heydariyeh, about 700km east of Tehran, at 6:20pm on Friday, and had its epicenter around 7km outside the city. Many people spent the night outdoors in the city’s parks fearing aftershocks. Of the 170 injured, 22 needed hospital treatment while the others were treated on site. No deaths were reported. Earthquakes are common in Iran. In 2003, about 30,000 people were killed in a quake that devastated the southeastern city of Bam.
■ISRAEL
Hamas commander killed
Hamas says a senior commander of its military wing has been killed in an air strike. Israeli warplanes launched missiles against five Hamas targets late on Friday and early yesterday, in response to a rocket attack on the coastal city of Ashkelon. Friday’s strike against Ashkelon had caused damage but no injuries. The violence comes after weeks of relative calm, raising concerns of new escalation. Hamas identified the slain man as Issa Batran, a commander of its military wing in central Gaza and a rocket maker. Hamas says eight of its supporters and three civilians were also wounded. Hamas has been firing crude rockets at Israel for a decade, but has largely held its fire since Israel’s military offensive against Gaza 19 months ago.
■SOUTH AFRICA
Four fined for racist video
A court has ordered four white former students to pay fines of nearly US$3,000 each for a video they made that humiliated black university employees and drew global attention to entrenched racism on the campus. The young men had pleaded guilty to charges of illegally and deliberately injuring another person’s dignity. The video, made in 2007, showed the five employees being forced to consume food and drinks that appeared to be tainted with urine. The students later described it instead as a “harmless” liquid.
■LIBERIA
New births to be registered
The government, still recovering from a 14-year civil war and previous decades of poverty and illiteracy, said it would now require all children to get birth certificates, a document most of them lack. An initiative launched on Friday in the capital will now require parents to register all new births or face fines, said national birth registration coordinator Esther Thomas. She said the campaign also plans to register everyone under the age of 18. A Liberian government report found in 2008 that fewer than 4 percent of children under the age of five have birth certificates or registration. That statistic places the West African nation in the company of lawless Somalia, which has not had a government for two decades.
■IRAN
Mother pleads for children
A woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery pleaded to be allowed to hug her children, in a letter attributed to her released by human rights activists in London yesterday. Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two, was given the sentence after being found guilty. It sparked an outcry in Western countries, and was temporarily halted earlier this month by Iranian judiciary chief Sadeq Larijani. “I’m afraid of dying,” the letter said. “Help me stay alive and hug my children.”
■BOLIVIA
Priest found with cocaine
The Aymara priest who blessed President Evo Morales at an inauguration ceremony four years ago has been arrested in possession of 240kg of cocaine, police said on Thursday. Anti-drugs police found a cocaine laboratory in the home of priest Valentin Mejillones. His son and a Colombian couple were also detained. The stash of liquid cocaine seized in the raid was valued at US$240,000. Mejillones told local media he had been tricked by the Colombians, and Vice President Alvaro Garcia said Morales had not chosen the priest to preside at the traditional swearing-in ceremony at the sacred Tiwanaku ruins.
■UNITED STATES
Case against Gore dropped
Former vice president Al Gore will not face charges over an alleged 2006 groping of a masseuse “due to a lack of credible evidence,” Oregon police said on Friday. “After evaluating the materials submitted by PPB [Portland Police Bureau], I have concluded that I agree with the assessment that a sustainable criminal case does not exist,” deputy attorney Don Rees for Multnomah County said in a memo.
■UNITED STATES
Obama to Iran: Free hikers
President Barack Obama marked the first anniversary of Iran’s jailing of three young Americans by reiterating that they are guilty of nothing, have never worked for the US government and never had any quarrel with the Iranian government. In an appeal for Tehran to free Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, Obama reminded Iran that it is a signatory to conventions on human rights that if honored would free the Americans. “Their unjust detention has nothing to do with the issues that continue to divide the United States and the international community from the Iranian government,” Obama’s statement said. “This is a humanitarian imperative.”
■CANADA
Two bombers ‘intercepted’
Canadian military jets intercepted two Russian bombers this week as they approached Canadian airspace near the Arctic, the defense ministry said on Friday. “The two Russian TU-95 bombers have returned to their base without incident,” defense ministry spokesman Jay Paxton said of the situation that occurred on Wednesday. “They were found 250 nautical miles [463km] from Goose Bay in the province of Newfoundland, in waters in a Canadian buffer zone,” he said. Russian officials, however, denied any confrontation took place. “The Russian flights were in international air space,” Sergei Khudyov, a spokesman at the Russian embassy in Ottawa, said in a statement to the Toronto Star newspaper. “Nothing happened.”
■UNITED STATES
Bear euthanized after killing
A grizzly bear that killed a man and injured two people at a campground in Montana was euthanized on Friday and her three yearling cubs will be sent to a zoo, Montana officials said. Rangers on Wednesday found the mauled body of Kevin Kramer, 48, at Soda Butte Campground in the Gallatin National Forest, on the northeastern border of Yellowstone National Park. Two other campers, a 58-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man, were also injured by a bear at the same park. The adult bear was euthanized in accordance with rules which call for “grizzly bears that display unprovoked aggressive behavior toward humans, or that cause substantial human injury, including loss of human life, be removed from the population,” the US Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all
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