HONG KONG: The underground path had “one end in a rented garage in Shenzhen and another in a thicket of reeds in Hong Kong, totally concealed,” said a report posted on its official website. “It was dug in a totally professional way,” it said. Semi-autonomous Hong Kong, along with Shenzhen in mainland China, are both important trade hubs for the fast-growing and massive market. But the two have very different tariff systems.
The as-yet unidentified smugglers sought to exploit their proximity by building a 40-meter-long underground passage and installing a rail track and wagon with a block-and-tackle system to ferry goods such as cell phones and tablet computers. The tunnel stood about 0.8 meters wide and 1 meter high, just big enough for an adult to crawl through. It started from a remote area of Shenzhen, in a garage full of bags packed with sludge dug up from the tunnel, and ended in a cluster of tall reeds a few meters past a river dividing mainland China and Hong Kong, with the nearest village 20 meters away. The project was estimated to have cost three million yuan ($490,000) and taken four months to build. Border officers discovered the tunnel a week ago, and a nearby resident said she heard drilling noises for one or two nights but assumed they were for renovations. The man who rented the garage had used a fake ID, authorities were quoted as saying
Rescue operations to free a six-year-old girl, Lama, who had fallen into a 100-meter-deep well in Tabuk, have been hampered by adverse weather conditions and loose soil at the site. An official said she might be freed in the next 24 hours as reports suggested that the rescuers were close to reaching her. The Saudi Red Crescent, and municipal and health officials are involved in the operation. Civil Defense teams are digging a parallel borehole to reach the child. Police are also looking for the landowner who dug the well and left it uncovered. It has now been six days since Lama fell into the well in Haql area near Tabuk. She was on a weekend picnic at the spot with her parents when she fell into the well that was partly covered and had no warning signs. Lama’s father called the Civil Defense and police after hearing Lama’s screams. There has since been a full-scale rescue operation under way monitored by Tabuk Gov. Prince Fahd bin Sultan. Brig. Mastour Al-Harithy, director of Tabuk’s Civil Defense, has been camping at the site with dozens of personnel, including specialist geologists from Saudi Aramco. Col. Mamdouh Al-Anzi, media spokesperson for the Civil Defense in Tabuk, said officials lowered a camera into the well, which found that Lama was at a depth of 30 meters in the 100-meter-deep and half-meter-wide well. He said Civil Defense teams are working around the clock with their machinery. Al-Anzi said the rescue operation was halted for some time due to strong winds and falling sand and rocks. However, the rescuers had almost reached the child on Wednesday, and it was likely she would be freed in the next 24 hours, he said. The relatives of the girl wanted to join the rescue operations but officials stopped them because they might endanger the child in the sandy area.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: An American man detained for months in the United Arab Emirates and seven co-defendants were fined and sentenced to jail Monday after being convicted in connection to a satirical video about youth culture in Dubai. The case, which has drawn the attention of international human rights advocates, centers around a mockumentary uploaded to the Internet. Officials charged that the film spoofing would-be Dubai “gangstas” ran afoul of a 2012 cybercrimes law that tightened penalties for challenging authorities, according to supporters of one of the filmmakers, Shezanne Cassim. Cassim, 29, is a US citizen from Woodbury, Minnesota, who was born in Sri Lanka and moved to Dubai for work after graduating from the University of Minnesota in 2006. He became the public face of the defendants after his family launched an effort to publicize his months-long incarceration following his arrest in April. He was sentenced Monday to a year in prison followed by deportation and a 10,000 dirham ($2,725) fine, according to family spokeswoman Jennifer Gore. American consular officials have been following the case closely and attended Monday’s hearing at the State Security Court in the federal capital, Abu Dhabi. The US Embassy had no official comment following the verdict. State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf last week said American officials were troubled by Cassim’s “prolonged incarceration” and called for “a fair and expedient trial and judgment.” Two Indian defendants received similar sentences, while two Emirati brothers were sentenced to eight months behind bars and received 5,000 dirham fines, according to state-owned newspaper The National. A third brother was pardoned. The paper said the defendants had been accused of “defaming the UAE society’s image abroad.” Three other defendants, a Canadian, Briton and an American, were convicted and sentenced in absentia to the penalties given to their other foreigners. They have never been detained by authorities and so are unlikely to serve their sentences. The paper identified the defendants only by their initials, which is common in the Emirati media. Gulf Arab authorities have been cracking down on social media use over the past two years, with dozens of people arrested across the region for Twitter posts deemed offensive to leaders or for social media campaigns urging more political openness. The video, called “Ultimate Combat System: The Deadly Satwa Gs,” is set in the Satwa district of Dubai. It is a documentary style clip that pokes fun at Dubai youth who style themselves “gangstas” but are not particularly thuggish, and shows fictional “combat” training that includes throwing a sandal and using a mobile phone to call for help. It opens with text saying the video is fictional and is not meant to offend.
A Saudi court has sentenced an Ethiopian housemaid for murdering the six-year-old daughter of her Saudi employer to avenge his alleged mistreatment of her.
The court in Riyadh handed down the death verdict after the 26-year-old maid confessed to killing Lamis by slitting her throat with a kitchen knife. Police arrested the maid just an hour after she killed the daughter in July and hid in the back garden of her employer’s house in Hota Bani Tamim, just south of Riyadh. Police said in July they found the maid armed with a cleaver, which she used to attack them before they overpowered her. Saudi newspapers on Tuesday said the maid was told by the judge she can appeal against the death sentence within 30 days.
HONG KONG: The underground path had “one end in a rented garage in Shenzhen and another in a thicket of reeds in Hong Kong, totally concealed,” said a report posted on its official website.
