Vietnam court upholds death penalty for tycoon convicted of fraud
A court in Vietnam on Tuesday upheld the death sentence for real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, rejecting her appeal against a conviction for embezzlement and bribery, according to state media.
Lan, sentenced to death earlier this year for embezzling billions from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), was awaiting the verdict of her appeal.
Lan, 68, was appealing a death sentence for orchestrating a $44bn fraud – the largest in banking history. Convicted in April under Vietnam’s anti-corruption campaign, she was accused of secretly controlling Saigon Commercial Bank and embezzling $12bn. She was also convicted of bribing government officials and breaching bank lending regulations.
“The consequences Lan caused are unprecedented in the history of litigation and the amount of money embezzled is unprecedentedly large and unrecoverable,” the prosecution was quoted as saying at the appeal hearing by state-run online newspaper VietnamNet.
“The defendant’s actions have affected many aspects of society, the financial market, the economy,” it said.
Her only hope was to repay $9bn – 75 per cent of the misappropriated funds – to have her sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
“We are now trying to help her to avoid the death penalty,” Lan’s lawyer Giang Hong Thanh said earlier. “There is a group of overseas investors who have agreed to lend Lan $400 million and they are working on the documents required to send the money in,” he said.
According to Vietnamese law, Lan’s sentence could be reduced if she managed to return three-quarters of the embezzled assets.
Lan, the former chair of Van Thinh Phat Group, is at the centre of Vietnam’s high-profile anti-corruption crackdown that has grabbed global attention. Earlier last month, she appeared visibly shaken in court when prosecutors proposed upholding the death penalty, describing herself as psychologically disturbed by the decision, according to VnExpress.
In October, she was sentenced to life imprisonment in a separate trial for illegally transferring $4.5bn across borders, laundering $17.5bn from Saigon Commercial Bank, and misappropriating $1.2bn through fraudulent bond issuances.
Lan’s case is part of the “blazing furnace” anti-corruption campaign, a sweeping initiative led initially by the late Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
The current general secretary, To Lam, has vowed to continue the campaign with equal resolve, targeting corruption across all sectors and resulting in the detention of numerous high-ranking officials and executives.
Her lawyers were seeking leniency from the judges, arguing that a death sentence would hinder her ability to negotiate favourable deals for selling her assets and investments, making it more challenging to raise the $9bn required. They contend she would have a better chance of achieving this under a life sentence.
About 36,000 people have been identified as victims of the SCB fraud, a scandal that shook the communist nation and sparked rare protests from those affected.
Lan and her family founded the Van Thinh Phat company in 1992, following Vietnam’s transition from a state-controlled economy to a market-oriented system that welcomed foreign investment.
According to the state media outlet Tien Phong, Lan began her career by assisting her mother, a Chinese entrepreneur, in selling cosmetics at Ho Chi Minh City’s oldest market.
Lan still has the right to request a review under Vietnam’s cassation or retrial procedures.
Japan witnesses warmest autumn in history
Japan has experienced its warmest fall since records began more than a century ago, pushing the country’s iconic autumn foliage displays into December.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said the temperature was 1.97C higher than usual between September and November since the records began in 1898.
The disturbance in autumn was recorded as the country saw its hottest summer on record after a scorching three months. The brutal heat was 1.76C higher than the average recorded between 1991 and 2020 during Jul and August.
“This year was 1.97C higher than usual … making it the hottest autumn since 1898, when statistics began,” the JMA said on Monday.
The temperature was 2.4C higher than average temperature between September and November in Tokyo, it said.
The central city of Nagoya was 2.9C more warmer and northern Sapporo city was 1.2C more hot.
The JMA said the best time to now see the autumn foliage would be around 5 December in Tokyo and around 9 December in Osaka, more than a month delayed in both places.
It follows Japan’s iconic Mount Fuji staying snowless well into autumn this year, something that hasn’t happened since recordkeeping began 130 years ago.
Japan’s highest mountain is usually covered in snow by mid-October, signalling the start of winter. This year, however, warmer temperatures have kept Fuji bare, breaking the previous record for the latest snowfall, set on 26 October 1955 and tied in 2016.
The delayed snowfall on Fuji is part of a pattern of unpredictable seasonal changes around the world due to the climate crisis. The longer summers are impacting both snow cover and precipitation.
In fact, 2024 is set to be the hottest year on record for the world for the second straight year.
Dozens of cities in Japan recorded high temperatures, close to or over 30C, in the early days of October, according to analysis from the nonprofit research group Climate Central.
The unusual heat Japan has experienced was made three times more likely because of the climate crisis, the study found.
In 2024, a record number of people died from heatstroke in Tokyo, with 252 people dying between June and September. Most of the victims were elderly people who were found dead in their homes without air conditioning. Earlier this year, Japan’s early bloom of cherry blossoms had also sparked concerns.
Climate scientists have forecasted that 2024 is on its way to become the hottest year since the climate has been recorded.
It is believed 2024 will be the first year with temperatures more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – probably smashing the record at more than 1.55C on average.
Moped-rider arrested for snatching glasses off people’s faces
A 49-year-old man in Tokyo, Japan, has been arrested for allegedly snatching glasses off people’s faces while riding a moped.
Police found 50 pairs of glasses at his home in Shinjuku and are investigating his involvement in similar crimes, Mainichi reported.
The suspect, who has declined to comment on the case, is accused of stealing glasses by approaching a man in his 20s from behind on a road at around 9.15pm on 2 September. He reportedly asked the pedestrian for directions to the nearest station to make him stop, police said, only to steal his glasses.
The victim later reported the theft to police.
Police said they arrested the man, a resident of Shinjuku, a ward in the western part of central Tokyo, in connection with the case.
The occupation of the suspect remains unknown.
People took to social media to comment on the spate of thefts on mopeds. “Today it’s glasses, next week could be mobile phones,” one person wrote. “What’s going on with this worldwide epidemic of thieving (sic) people’s personal possessions.”
Another wrote: “Glasses can be expensive depending on the lens and frames. This fool is causing some regular people problems.”
Japan Today reported that the growing popularity of electric scooters and mopeds has caused an increase in accidents and traffic violations in the country.
In September, the National Police Agency reported 25,156 traffic violations by electric scooter users between July 2023 and June this year. This followed a revision to Japan’s Road Traffic Act in July last year, allowing individuals aged 16 and over to ride electric scooters without a driver’s licence, provided the scooters meet specific standards.
Actor shares photos of domestic abuse: ‘I didn’t want to do this’
Malaysian actor Zahnita Wilson has alleged that she endured two decades of domestic abuse by her husband Abdul Zackery Ghouse.
After Wilson, 41, detailed the allegations in an Instagram post, police arrested Mr Ghouse under the country’s Domestic Violence Act and booked him under criminal intimidation charges.
“I didn’t want to do this,” she wrote, “but I am forced to. This is why I left my old house and why I sometimes wear sunglasses.”
The actor’s post included a picture showing Wilson with a black eye.
She was hit in the face, Wilson claimed, “because I asked my husband if he had another girl” and “he couldn’t process the question well enough to give a verbal answer”.
Wilson claimed she had filed police reports over the years but no action was taken against her husband.
Her Instagram post drew messages of support from fellow celebrities as also members of the general public.
“You don’t and never deserve this ever,” actress Sarimah Ibrahim commented.
Kuantan police chief assistant commissioner Wan Mohd Zahari Wan Busu confirmed Mr Ghouse’s arrest on Monday, Sinar Harian reported.
Pahang police chief Datuk Seri Yahaya Othman said the incident that caused the black eye was allegedly triggered by Wilson’s decision to leave and live separately, which angered her husband and led to the altercation.
“The victim filed a police report on 27 November and her husband was arrested yesterday after reporting to the Kuantan district police headquarters. Today, the suspect was brought to court for a remand application,” he said.
Wilson, who also has a modelling career, told entertainment news outlet Mstar that her repeated pleas to authorities over years of abuse had gone unanswered.
“I’ve filed police reports for the beatings I endured all these while but no action has been taken. Instead, it backfired on me,” she was quoted as saying by the outlet on Monday.
The couple have four children, Sinar Daily reported.
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American and Canadian climbers missing in New Zealand’s highest peak
Rescue teams have found the equipment belonging to three climbers who went missing while climbing the tallest mountain peak in New Zealand.
American nationals Kurt Blair, 56, and Carlos Romero, 50, and a Canadian man flew by helicopter on Saturday to a camp on Mount Cook, known as Aoraki in Maori, with plans to summit the 3,724m-mountain. Police have withheld details of the Canadian national until authorities can contact his family.
The trio was reported missing on Monday after they failed to arrive to meet their prearranged transport after the climb. Searchers hours later found several climbing-related items believed to belong to the men, but no sign of them, police said.
The search and rescue efforts on Tuesday were temporarily suspended due to the deteriorating weather conditions on Aoraki, with heavy rain and snow forecast. Operations were unlikely to begin again until conditions improved, expected to be on Thursday.
The local police said they have been working with the US and the Canadian embassies to “inform and support the families of the three men”.
The Silverton Avalanche School in Colorado, US, said it was notified the climbers appeared to have “taken a fatal fall from the high upon the peak”.
“Gear and equipment found from the party has helped SAR [search and rescue] piece together the tragedy although remote, technical and heavily glaciated terrain coupled with deteriorating weather has prevented a recovery of the climbers,” it said in a post on Facenook.
The school remembered Mr Blair as a “beloved fixture” of the “San Juan mountains who comes from a proud lineage of mountain adventurers”.
It said Mr Blair’s “calm demeanor and positive presence ran counter to the rough edges and sharp tongues so often exemplified by the hard scrabble ranks of mountain guides”.
“He was the nicest guy you’d ever share a rope or trail or skin track with, and his humility, competence and polite nature made him a client and student favourite.”
Mr Blair “leaves behind a loving family, two amazing sons and a mountain community that stretches along the entire length of the 550 corridor and beyond”, it added.
A leading mountain guide told the New Zealand Herald that the missing trio could have faced treacherous conditions such as deadly rime ice.
“With warming trends, you’ve got ice cliffs that can fall down and they’re incredibly hard to predict compared to avalanches,” Gary Dickson said.
He said rime ice was an “ice formation in which cold water droplets grow on to each other and build out … if that falls off it’ll either kill you, injure you or give you a massive fright at the very least”.
Aoraki is part of the Southern Alps, the scenic and icy mountain range that runs the length of New Zealand’s South Island. A settlement of the same name at its base is a destination for domestic and foreign tourists.
The peak is popular among experienced climbers even though its terrain is technically difficult due to crevasses, avalanche risk, changeable weather and glacier movement.
More than 240 deaths have been recorded on the mountain and in the surrounding national park since the start of the 20th century.
Indian politician seen wearing board around neck as punishment
An Indian politician from the western state of Punjab was seen wearing a plaque around his neck and holding a spear as a part of a punishment for alleged religious sacrilege.
Former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, who also served as the chief of the Shiromani Akali Dal party, began serving his punishment on Tuesday by wearing the plaque while in a wheelchair at the entrance of the revered Golden Temple in Amritsar.
The 62-year-old was punished by the Akal Takht – the highest temporal body of Sikhs – for allegedly favouring convicted self-styled ‘godman’ Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in the 2007 sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib – the holy religious scripture of Sikhism.
Mr Badal and other members of this party who had then served as cabinet members have been directed to scrub bathrooms, wash dishes and serve food to people. He will sit outside the Golden Temple for two days wearing the guard’s dress and the plaque on his neck with a note of his confession of sins, according to reports.
He was initially asked to stand outside the door but due to his fractured leg, he has been allowed to serve his punishment in a wheelchair.
Mr Badal was declared tankhaiya or guilty of religious misconduct by the clergy during the verdict on 30 August for making decisions that allegedly hurt the Sikh community when his party was in power between 2007 and 2017 in Punjab.
The former minister admitted the mistakes, including securing a pardon for Ram Rahim in a 2007 blasphemy case and failing to punish those involved in the alleged sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib in 2015.
The clergy also announced to revoke the Fakhr-e-Qaum (Pride of the Sikh Community) title conferred to Mr Badal’s father, Parkash Singh Badal, who also served as the former chief minister of Punjab.
The Sikh clergy said the Akali party leadership had lost its moral foundation and asked the party to elect to office bearers within six months. Mr Badal resigned as the party leader in November but the party has refused to accept his resignation.
Fresh tensions as Russian submarine seen in waters off Philippines
Tensions between Russia and the Philippines escalated as the Philippine military deployed a navy ship and air force planes to shadow a Russian submarine in the South China Sea last week, security officials said.
Philippine Navy spokesperson Roy Vincent Trinidad said a Russian Kilo-class submarine was sighted 80 nautical miles off the western province of Occidental Mindoro on 28 November, with the waters considered to be a part of Manila’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
It was first contacted in response to a Philippine Navy’s two-way radio inquiry when it was spotted in Manila’s waters. The officials aboard the submarine said it was en route home to the Russian eastern city of Vladivostok after participating in a joint exercise with the Malaysian Navy, Jonathan Malaya, assistant director-general of the National Security Council, said.
Manila downplayed the presence of the Russian submarine in international waters, granting it the status of other foreign ships who have the right of “innocent passage”.
However, tensions surged again when the submarine was spotted about 80 nautical miles (148km) off the Philippine province of Mindoro, Mr Malaya said.
The submarine was sighted after it surfaced due to weather-related conditions, he said.
Philippine Navy frigate Jose Rizal established radio contact with the Russian submarine, which confirmed its identity as UFA 490 and its intent.
“The Russian vessel stated it was awaiting improved weather conditions before proceeding to Vladivostok, Russia,” Mr Trinidad said, without elaborating on why it was in the area.
“All of that is very concerning,” president Ferdinand Marcos Jr said when asked about the submarine. “Any intrusion into the West Philippine Sea, of our EEZ, of our baselines is very worrisome. So, yes, it’s just another one.”
The leader referred to the South China Sea by using its Filipino name where his country, along with Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and other coastal states have faced an increasingly aggressive China, which claims the busy waterway virtually in its entirety.
On Monday, the Philippines coast guard said that a Chinese military helicopter flew close to fishing boats manned by Filipinos in a “dangerous act of harassment” last week at Iroquois Reef, a disputed fishing area in the South China Sea.
Two Philippine coast guard patrol ships have been deployed to the area to protect Filipino fishermen, coast guard spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela said.
There was no immediate comment from Chinese officials.
The South China Sea is seeing an increasing spike in territorial confrontations, particularly between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and naval forces, starting last year has prompted closer surveillance by the United States and other Western governments of the key global trade route.
South Korea says 38 Vietnamese tourists have gone missing in Jeju
Thirty-eight Vietnamese tourists have reportedly disappeared in South Korea after arriving in the country through the southern Jeju island last month.
The tourists were part of a group of around 90 tourists who arrived on the island on 14 November. However, 38 of them disappeared during the final stop of their itinerary before they were set to depart to Vietnam, officials said.
The rest of the group members boarded the return flight but those who did not have been reported missing to the authorities.
Foreign tourists in the resort island can stay up to 30 days without a visa under the visa waiver programme. The programme, which is part of the Special Act on the Establishment of Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, allows people from 64 countries to stay on the island for up to 30 days without a visa.
However, travellers cannot travel to other parts of South Korea, such as Seoul or Busan, unless they have a valid visa for the mainland.
The missing tourists are only allowed to stay on the island till 14 December under the visa waiver programme and will be considered illegal tourists after the deadline.
The Jeju Immigration Office said it is working to find the missing tourists and reviewing CCTV footage of the hotel and streets around it.
“We are currently analyzing closed-circuit (CC) TV to find out where the Vietnamese tourists disappeared,” an official from the Jeju Immigration and Foreign Affairs Agency said.
“We plan to organize a Jeju visa-free fugitive arrest team to start a full-fledged arrest.”
This is not the first time tourists have been reported missing on the island. Many of these situations involve individuals overstaying their permitted time or attempting to remain on the island illegally, taking advantage of Jeju’s visa-free entry programme.
In 2022, at least 55 Thai tourists who arrived in Jeju island with a package tour group disappeared during their holiday. They were suspected of taking illegal jobs in various parts of the country.