HONG KONG
Police stabbing yields arrests
Police yesterday said that they have arrested seven people for “assisting” a suspect in the stabbing of a police officer during a protest against new national security legislation on Wednesday last week. Authorities arrested five males and two females aged 24 to 71 on suspicion of offenses, including helping to arrange the suspect purchase an air ticket and transportation to the airport, police said at a news briefing. Police on Thursday last week arrested a 24-year-old man at the airport on suspicion of stabbing and wounding an officer during the demonstration, just hours after the new legislation was imposed.
KAZAKHSTAN
Super pneumonia ‘fake news’
The government yesterday dismissed as incorrect a warning by China’s embassy for its citizens to guard against an outbreak of pneumonia in the nation that it described as being more lethal than COVID-19. In a statement late on Thursday on WeChat, the Chinese embassy flagged a “significant increase” in cases in the Kazakh cities of Atyrau, Aktobe and Shymkent since mid-June. However, the Ministry of Healthcare branded Chinese media reports based on the embassy statement as “fake news.”
THAILAND
US’ ‘strategic vision’ inked
US Army Chief of Staff General James McConville yesterday met with Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and Royal Thai Army Commander in Chief General Apirat Kongsompong, and signed a Strategic Vision Statement, a US embassy statement said, as Washington looks to reassure allies about its commitment to the region. The US has sought to counter China’s influence in Southeast Asia after having scaled back some military exchanges with Thailand after its 2014 military coup, when Bangkok began to forge closer ties with China.
INDIA
Australia welcomed to drills
The government plans to invite Australia to join the trilateral India-Japan-US Malabar naval exercises. The decision to include Australia in the drills — the first time that all members of the regional grouping known as the Quad would be engaged at a military level — comes as Beijing and New Delhi are caught up in their worst border tensions in four decades. The exercise would bring together the countries’ navies in the Bay of Bengal at the end of the year, said senior officials, on condition of anonymity. “The Quad has always been a security platform, but didn’t have a military context to it,” Observer Research Foundation distinguished fellow Rajeswari Pillai Rajagoplan said. “The Malabar exercises might give it just that thanks to China upping its ante and threatening the region’s security.”
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
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