Singapore hangs man for trafficking 36g of heroin

Singapore has executed a man for trafficking 36.93g of heroin, making it the city-state’s second hanging this year.

The 45-year-old man was sent to the gallows at the Changi prison after being found guilty of trafficking more than twice the 15g of pure heroin that merits the death penalty, the Central Narcotics Bureau said on Friday.

Under Singapore’s law, which dictates harsh punishments for drug trafficking, anyone convicted of trafficking more than 500g (17.6oz) of cannabis or 15g (0.5oz) of heroin will be executed.

The identity and details of the case were kept private by rights groups at the request of the man’s family.

The man was convicted and subsequently sentenced to death in February 2019, AFP reported. His legal petitions for clemency were dismissed.

“He was accorded full due process under the law, and was represented by legal counsel throughout the process,” the narcotics bureau said.

In February, Singapore executed Bangladeshi national Ahmed Salim, making him the first person convicted of murder to be hanged since 2019.

Singapore’s authorities had put execution sentences on hold in 2020 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, but resumed the hangings in 2022 despite calls to cease capital punishment for drug-related crimes.

In 2023, Singapore conducted its first execution of a woman in 19 years for trafficking nearly 31g of pure heroin.

Human rights groups, international activists and the UN have urged Singapore to halt executions for drug offenses and say there is increasing evidence it is ineffective as a deterrent.

Singapore authorities insist capital punishment is key to halting drug demand and supply. “Capital punishment is used only for the most serious crimes in Singapore that cause grave harm to the victim, or to society,” the Singapore Police Force previously said in a statement.

There are just over 50 people on death row with all but two convicted of drug offences, according to the Transformative Justice Collective, a Singapore-based NGO that campaigns against the death penalty.

Singapore has so far executed 18 convicts since 2022.

“Singapore reversed the Covid-19 hiatus on executions, kicking its death row machinery into overdrive,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, previously said.

“The government’s reinvigorated use of the death penalty merely highlighted its disregard for human rights protections and the inherent cruelty of capital punishment.”

Could scores of deaths in Kerala landslides have been avoided?

More than 300 people were killed and entire villages wiped out after landslides caused by heavy rainfall struck Wayanad in the southern Indian state of Kerala earlier this week, sounding alarm all over the country about the growing frequency and intensity of such disasters.

Heavy rainfall, flooding and landslides are common during South Asia’s monsoon season from June through September, but they have grown more destructive in recent years, in large part because of human activities.

Kerala’s case is illustrative. Though the occurance of the flooding and landslides was beyond human control, the extent of the disaster was not.

The first landslide hit Wayanad an hour past midnight on Tuesday. The villagers of Meppadi, Mundakkai and Chooralmala ran for their lives. Many of those who stayed were buried by landslides that followed one after the other until early dawn.

“We thought the entire mountain was going to fall on us. We were fighting death that time,” a villager identified only as Jayesh told India Today.

The proximate cause of the disaster was unrelenting monsoon rain. The Indian Meteorological Department said Wayanad had received 28cm of rain in the 24 hours before the landslides struck and destroyed critical infrastructure like roads, bridges and power lines along with homes and crops.

Kerala is no stranger to intense moonsoon rainfall given its geography, flanked by the Arabian Sea to the west and the Western Ghats mountain range to the east. But this monsoon has been particularly severe, leading to swollen rivers, landslides and extensive flooding in the southern state as also elsewhere in the country.

Studies have shown that the climate crisis is making the monsoon particularly harsh, with rain falling in short and heavy bursts.

“Climate change is drastically altering rainfall patterns in the region,” said Dr Akshay Deoras, a researcher at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science.

“What was once a predictable monsoon season has become increasingly erratic, with long dry spells followed by sudden, intense downpours.”

This shift heightens the risk of floods and makes landslides more likely as dry soils are unable to absorb heavy rains effectively, he explained.

The rainfall is also not distributed equally. While rainfall in Kerala’s nothern Kannur district was 21 per cent above average between 1 June and 30 July, it was 14 per cent below average in neighbouring Wayanad and nearly 25 per cent below average in Idukki and Ernakulam.

“The co-occurence of two extreme scenarios, landslides and rainfall deficit, in the same state reflects a strong spatial variability in this year’s monsoon rainfall,” Dr Deoras said.

“The expectation is that such a pattern would become more intense in the future if global warming continues.”

Kerala was devastated by Cyclone Ockhi in 2017 and again by massive floods in 2018, among the worst in its history.

What Dr Deoras described isn’t unique to Kerala. It’s a global phenomenon driven by rising temperatures and shifting climate patterns.

The Indian Ocean, a critical driver of the region’s climate, has warmed significantly, nearly 1.5C, since the industrial era began. This warming has increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, including the kind of heavy rains that contributed to Kerala’s recent disaster, experts said.

Human activities also played a crucial role in amplifying the disaster’s impact.

Deforestation, unplanned urban development and poor land-use practices have significantly compromised the region’s natural defenses.

As India has sought to develop economically over the past few decades, it has built roads, bridges and mines in hilly regions. From the Himalayas in the north to the Western Ghats in the south, however, these mountainous areas are fragile.

More than half of the Western Ghats mountain range is at risk of landslides, a government panel found and called for it to be declared ecologically sensitive with the most sensitive regions protected from any kind of human activity.

According to a 2021 study, 56 per cent of Kerala’s landslides occurred in plantation areas. The plantations often stand where lush forests once thrived.

Wayanad lost 62 per cent of its forest cover between 1950 and 2018, according to a study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Studies have also suggested that a changing climate, a stronger monsoon in the past two decades and land cover changes have contributed to the increased frequency of the “heavy rainfall events”.

Such ecological warnings very rarely alter India’s construction plans.

“We see roads being constructed and widened without proper measures such as slope stability, retaining walls, or adequate drainage systems,” said professor YP Sundriyal, head of geology at the HNB Garhwal University.

“Such infrastructure projects, carried out without considering the region’s geological sensitivity, can exacerbate the risk of landslides.”

Kerala has witnessed a construction boom in the last few decades, driven by rapid urbanisation and a growing population, that has often ignored ecological considerations. Buildings have been erected in areas prone to floods and landslides, with insufficient regard for safety regulations. The result is a landscape where natural disasters can have disproportionately severe consequences.

One of the most vital components of disaster management is the implementation of effective early warning systems. While Kerala has made strides in this area, significant gaps remain. Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, emphasized the need for localised early warning systems.

“Landslide-prone areas are mapped and known, yet timely evacuation and preventive measures are often lacking,” he said. “We need to monitor rainfall data in these hotspots and prepare targeted early warning systems to save lives and livelihoods.”

The disaster in Wayanad revealed shortcomings in the state’s ability to communicate risks and coordinate evacuation. In some cases, people were unaware of imminent danger or reluctant to leave because of the lack of clear and timely information.

In any case, the response to the disaster has got mired in politicking. India’s home minister Amit Shah said in the parliament that the Kerala government did not gauge the severity of the situation accurately despite the federal government despatching nine National Disaster Response Force teams to the state on 23 July.

“Had those blaming the government read the warnings, the situation would have been different,” he declared.

The Kerala government denied they were warned. “None of the agencies had issued a red alert for Wayanad ahead of the July 30 landslides,” it said.

If disasters like this are to be avoided, experts said, urgent mitigation measures need to be implemented.

“Kerala has not been witnessing typical monsoon rains and has been struggling to achieve its average rainfall,” said Mahesh Palawat, vice president of meteorology and climate change at Skymet Weather.

“Despite these heavy showers, it is yet to surpass its average rainfall so far. The rise in air and ocean temperatures has led to a drastic increase in moisture, making the atmosphere unstable.”

This instability underscores the need for a comprehensive strategy involving both mitigation and adaptation measures.

“Several measures can be taken to mitigate the impact of landslides and excessive rains linked to climate change,” Mr Palawat said.

“Implementing robust early warning systems through enhanced weather forecasting technologies can provide timely alerts, enabling residents to evacuate and prepare.”

Death toll from bridge collapse in China rises to 38

The death toll has risen to 38 from the partial collapse of a highway bridge in northwestern Shaanxi province two weeks ago, China‘s state broadcaster CCTV reported on Friday evening. The bridge failure on 19 July sent at least 25 vehicles into a fast-flowing river.

The report said 24 people were still missing. One person was saved after the collapse.

The area where the bridge on the Danning highway fell had experienced heavy rains in the preceding days.

Teams have searched miles downstream looking for victims. A photo released by the Xinhua news agency shortly after the incident showed a section of the bridge snapped and folded at almost a 90-degree angle into the rushing brown water below.

The river passes through a mountain valley and the waters are turbulent, the report said.

The collapse has raised questions about the safety of China’s road and bridge infrastructure, built rapidly in recent decades. A similar collapse in May in Guangdong province killed 36 people.

Rains intensified by climate change have caused a series of landslides and floods across Asia. In China this week, 48 deaths were attributed to Typhoon Gaemi, which had weakened to a tropical storm by the time it reached the inland, southern province of Hunan.

Sichuan’s hardest-hit Hanyuan county has seen both roads and communications infrastructure damaged or destroyed, complicating rescue efforts, and teams had been working since dawn to restore connectivity and clear debris from highways.

From record-breaking heatwaves to unprecedented rainfall, China has been facing increasing numbers of extreme weather events in recent years, testing the country’s ability to cope with the impact of the climate crisis.

Recently, nine months worth of rain pounded a small town in Henan in one day. Officials recorded 606mm of rain in Dafengying in 24 hours, the most anywhere in China, according to national weather forecasters. That compares with the average annual rainfall of 800mm in the area.

Changing rainfall patterns are coinciding with a dramatic decline in the country’s economic expansion, which in past decades has seen China build a huge network of motorways, high-speed railways and airports across even the country’s most remote districts.

There is speculation that the economic slowdown has led officials and industries to cut corners to try and continue expanding this network, leading to a proliferation of poor-quality infrastructure and poor safety supervision.

Attack on aid convoy that killed 7 was due to Israel military failings

The Israeli military’s attack on an aid convoy in Gaza in April that killed seven people was the result of serious failures of defense procedures, mistaken identification and errors in decision-making, according to an Australian investigation that was made public Friday.

Australia initiated the investigation to examine Tel Aviv’s response to the widely condemned Israeli Defense Forces’ drone strikes on three World Central Kitchen vehicles on 1 April. Australian Zomi Frankcom, three of her aid worker colleagues, and three British personal security staff died in the attack.

Former Australian Defense Force chief Mark Binskin was appointed the government’s special adviser on the matter and visited Israel in May. He also engaged with World Central Kitchen and Solace Global, the company that provided the convoy’s security team.

Mr Binskin blamed the fatal strikes on “serious failures to follow IDF procedures, mistaken identification and errors in decision-making”, a statement said.

The armed security guards were likely mistaken for Hamas operatives, Mr Binskin said. This was the primary factor behind a “significant break down in situational awareness.”

He found the strikes were not deliberately directed against World Central Kitchen.

But Mr Binskin wrote: “It is important to all the families that an appropriate apology be provided to them by the government of Israel.”

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she had told Israel that the families deserved an apology.

While Mr Binskin’s report outlined steps Israeli had taken to avoid a repeat tragedy, “stronger protocols” were needed to protect aid workers in Gaza, Wong said.

“Gaza remains the deadliest place on earth to be an aid worker. This was not a one-off incident,” Wong told reporters.

“The UN reports that more than 250 aid workers have been killed since the start of this conflict and in recent weeks, a number of UN vehicles have come under attack. This is not acceptable,” Wong added.

Mr Binskin said his conclusions were “fairly consistent” with an Israeli military investigation in April that led to two officers being dismissed and three being reprimanded within a week of the bungled attack.

Military Advocate General Brig Gen Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, Israel’s top miliary lawyer, is considering further potential action against those responsible.

Wong said the Frankcom family felt that disciplinary action to date had been insufficient.

“The Australian government will continue to press for full accountability, including any appropriate criminal charges, and we will continue to advocate the views of the Frankcom family and the Australian government to Israel,” Wong said.

A family representative issued a statement Friday welcoming Mr Binskin’s report as an “important first step”.

“We hope it will be followed by further investigations in Israel regarding those responsible for this tragic event, followed by appropriate action,” the family statement said.

Mr Binskin said the Israeli Defense Forces had been “very forthcoming” toward his investigation. But the level of detail the Israelis provided on specific operational improvements they had made since the convoy blunder made it difficult for him to assess how effective the changes were.

The other World Central Kitchen staff killed were American-Canadian dual national Jacob Flickinger, Palestinian Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha and Polish citizen Damian Sobol. On the British security team were John Chapman, James Kirby and Jim Henderson.

Top Chinese commentator goes absent online after questioning policy

A prominent Chinese commentator, Hu Xijin, has suddenly gone silent on social media, prompting detractors of the Communist Party to speculate about ongoing attempts to censor discussion around the country’s reported economic slowdown.

Mr Hu, former Global Times editor and outspoken supporter of the Communist Party, has been incognito since he shared a controversial assessment of Beijing’s economic strategy discussed at a conclave led by president Xi Jinping last month.

Mr Hu’s silence online has caused speculation that his accounts on microblogging site Weibo and other social media platforms have been suspended, Hong Kong’s Sing Tao newspaper reported.

Mr Hu hasn’t posted since Saturday. This is unusual for a prolific commentator who would post several times a day on Weibo, where he has 25 million followers, as well as on X.

“I personally don’t want to say anything. You can just read what’s online. Please understand,” Mr Hu said in an interview with the newspaper last week.

China maintains strict censorship of the web, blocking western platforms like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. In their stead, Chinese developers have launched a plethora of platforms though they continue to run under a censorship regime.

According to the South China Morning Post, Mr Hu argued in a Weibo post that the conclave resolution omitting the pledge to keep “public ownership as the mainstay” of the economy was a “historic change”.

The absence of the slogan, used in the readout of a similar gathering in 2013 and echoed in many significant Communist Party documents since, indicated that the private sector would now be considered on a par with public companies, Mr Hu argued.

“The changes are undoubtedly historic,” he said in the now-deleted post shared on 22 July. “Non-public ownership and public ownership have become truly equal in their status.”

He instantly drew criticism from conservative Chinese bloggers who accused him of “blatantly violating the political discipline of the party”. Some accused him of intentionally misleading the public.

The world’s second largest economy has reportedly slowed down since the beginning of this year and Beijing has struggled to improve consumer confidence in the face of rising inflation, international trade frictions and geopolitical conflicts.

The party has allegedly pressured policymakers and analysts to avoid criticism of the economic strategy and refrain from using terms like deflation.

“It looks like the Weibo account of the former editor-in-chief of Global Times, Mr Hu Xijin, has been blocked by the Chinese internet tsar,” an international arbitrator named Tao Jingzhou said.

“If it turns out to be true, this definitely means that the Chinese government censorship has reached another plateau.”

Mr Hu retired from editing the Global Times in late 2021 after almost 17 years. He has been one of the loudest pro-China voices on X, lashing out at adversaries like the US, the UK and India and defending the government’s controversial policies during Covid pandemic.

In 2022, Mr Hu commented on then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, saying China’s military should shoot down her plane if she was escorted by American fighter jets upon arrival.

Taiwan police bust largest child sexual abuse images ring

Police in Taiwan have busted a major child sex abuse ring involving hundreds of people, making it the largest raid on an illegal pornography racket in the island’s history.

The Criminal Investigation Bureau announced on Thursday that they have arrested 449 people suspected of possessing child sexual abuse images and videos of women filmed in restrooms without their knowledge. They said that nearly 180 subscribers paid in cryptocurrency and network tokens for the illegal material, with transactions managed through overseas accounts and domains, complicating efforts to shut them down.

The accused face charges of violating Taiwan’s Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act, money laundering, and engaging in organised crime, the bureau’s chief, Lin Chien-lung, said at a press conference.

They include teachers, civil servants, police officers, IT workers, and military personnel, according to local media reports. One of them, a man surnamed Chang, allegedly operated Chuangyi Sifang, Taiwan’s largest illegal pornography platform with thousands of subscribers, on behalf of its reported owner, Lao Ma, a Chinese citizen, according to the Taipei Times.

The racket also operated through another online platform and two Telegram groups. The material shared included sexual images of minors and teenagers and videos of women filmed in restrooms of public places.

The investigation into the racket began in May and raids were conducted in June and July across Taiwan.

Mr Chang and three of his assistants were “strongly suspected of committing crimes”, prosecutors said.

“A special task team was formed by the National Criminal Police Department and 350 police officers were mobilised to carry out two waves of synchronous sweep operations in 17 counties and cities across the country,” the bureau said on Facebook.

Investigators said that 16 people were charged in the case but released on bail.

Police seized computers, cellphones, financial records, and cash worth £23,500 in currencies from Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.

Rufus Lin, director of the Criminal Investigation Bureau’s high-tech crime centre, said that they faced difficulty shutting down the networks as they operated through overseas accounts and domains, despite being run from within Taiwan.

In the past, Taiwan’s government has faced criticism from women’s and children’s rights groups over lenient laws for possession of images showing child sex abuse.

There were calls to enforce tougher penalties when Taiwanese celebrity Mickey Huang Tzu-chiao was ordered to pay a fine of NT$1.2m (£30,000) and write an apology after seven videos featuring minors were found on his hard drive. In the aftermath, in 2023, the maximum prison sentence was increased from two years to three and the maximum fine doubled to NT$1m (£23,970).

Additionally, victims were allowed up to seven years to file a complaint instead of three.

Indian court tells Yemeni Muslim refugee to ‘go to Pakistan’

A court in India reportedly told a Muslim refugee from Yemen to “go to Pakistan” after he overstayed his visa, echoing a crass Islamophobic dog whistle that is more commonly deployed in online debates by Hindu nationalists in the country.

A judge at the Bombay High Court made the remark while hearing a plea by Khaled Gomaeai Mohammad Hasan challenging a “Leave India Notice” issued to him by police in the western Maharashtra state, according to local media reports.

He pleaded for protection from forcible deportation to his home country of Yemen, which has been engaged in an active civil war since 2014, saying it would pose a “threat to his life” and the lives of his wife and children, Indian legal website Live Law reported.

Yemen was plunged into conflict a decade ago when Houthi rebels descended from their northern stronghold and seized the capital Sanaa as well as much of the north of the country, forcing the government into exile.

A Gulf coalition led by Saudi Arabia and supported by Western nations intervened in 2015 to restore the previous administration, leading to a war that has so far left over 150,000 people dead and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.

Mr Hasan arrived in India in March 2014 on a student visa and his wife followed in 2015. After their visas expired, the couple were issued refugee cards by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

Yet in February this year, they received a police notice ordering them to leave the country.

Mr Hasan said he is applying to move to Australia. Seeking permission to stay in India until his visa for Australia came through, he told the high court that his “proposed deportation was contrary to the international customary laws and the Indian constitution as it violated basic human rights”, Live Law reported.

The judges responded by telling Mr Hasan to go and seek refuge in Pakistan, India’s Muslim majority neighbour with which it shares frosty ties. Mr Hasan is not understood to have any connection to that country.

“Go to Pakistan” is an Islamophobic dog whistle frequently used by India’s Hindu nationalists against Muslims and critics of the Narendra Modi government.

“You can go to Pakistan, which is in the neighbourhood. Or you can go to any Gulf country. Do not take undue advantage of India’s liberal attitude,” Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Prithviraj Chavan told him according to Live Law.

The judges concluded the hearing by granting Mr Hasan and his family a 15-day temporary protection against forcible deportation while they sought clarity about the nationality of their daughter born in India.

Ten dead as freak torrential rains flood Indian capital region

At least 10 people died in India’s national capital region after heavy rainfall led to water logging and closure of schools and offices.

The Meteorological Department issued an alert as Delhi recorded over 100mm rain in a span of an hour yesterday while the government announced the closure of schools.

Residents were advised to stay indoors after waterlogging in several areas choked traffic.

A woman and her son drowned on Wednesday in a drain in East Delhi’s Mayur Vihar, as the city received its highest rain in 14 years.According to the police, the boy, Priyansh, slipped into an open drain which was not visible due to heavy flooding. The mother, identified as Tanuja, also fell inside while trying to rescue her son.

Two more people died on Wednesday, including one in a house collapse, reported India Today. A 12-year-old boy died from electrocution while he was returning home from tuition. Police have registered a case and are investigating the matter.

In the neighbouring satellite township of Gurugram, at least three people were electrocuted to death by a live wire submerged in a waterlogged area.

In Greater Noida, two people died due to a wall collapse.

Flight operations have also been hit, with diversion of at least 10 flights heading to the national capital, reported CNN-IBN. The national capital region encompasses Delhi and several districts surrounding it from the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan.

Visuals from ANI news agency showed flooding in the northern part of the city where three students drowned in a flooded basement last week.

Prime minister Narendra Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party found itself in the line of fire, after opposition parliamentarians raised concerns about a section of a leaking roof in the newly inaugurated parliament building.

The building, constructed as part of the government’s larger Central Vista redevelopment project, was inaugurated by Mr Modi on 28 May last year with both the Houses shifted to the new premises on 19 September.

Congress parliamentarian Manickam Tagore submitted an adjournment motion of the ongoing parliamentary session, seeking formation of special committee to inspect the “causes of the leaks, evaluate the design and materials, and recommend necessary repairs”.

Meanwhile, at least 11 people died after heavy rain lashed various parts of northern India and more than 250 people were missing after downpours in the Himalayas, including people stranded on a famous pilgrimage route.

IMD recorded 183mm (seven inches) of rain in the past 24 hours in the famous tourist destination of Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh.

More than 50 people were missing after heavy rain over state capital Shimla and surrounding regions, chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said in a post on X, adding that rescue operations were ongoing.

Two people died after a barrage in a power project was breached, obstructing connectivity in the region, state revenue minister Jagat Singh Negi told news agency ANI.

Indian Express newspaper reported that four people were killed after a cloudburst in the state of Uttarakhand and 200 pilgrims were stranded after rain washed away a part of their walking path.

Torrential rains, which, along with unabated construction have frequently triggered deadly flash floods and landslides in the mountains of India and neighbouring Pakistan and Nepal over the past few years, have been attributed to climate change.

In the south, hopes of finding survivors began to fade as hundreds of rescuers worked through slush and rocks and pulled out bodies from debris in the hills of Kerala state, a day after 167 people were killed in monsoon landslides.

Steady rain that intensified as the day progressed and the rising water level in a local river hampered the rescue, with a temporary bridge built to connect the worst affected area of Mundakkai being washed away.

The weather department has forecast more heavy rain over the next 24 hours, Kerala’s chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said and urged people to be on “high alert”.

Heavy rain in Kerala, one of India’s most popular tourist destinations, led to the landslides in its Wayanad district early on Tuesday, sending torrents of mud, water and tumbling boulders downhill and burying or sweeping people to their deaths as they slept. Experts said the area had received heavy rain in the last two weeks that softened the soil.

Extremely heavy rainfall on Monday then triggered the landslides. Nearly 1,600 people have been rescued from the hillside villages and tea and cardamom estates, authorities said.

Additional reporting from agencies