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A 75-year-old Afghan man has appealed against his death sentence for murdering his relative. Under sharia law, which replaced the Afghan judicial system when the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, the public execution would be carried out by a relative of the victim.
Severe flooding in Malaysia has killed at least five people and forced more than 72,000 to evacuate. Authorities have set up hundreds of relief shelters as emergency responders waded through waist-deep water to rescue victims. On December 18, 627mm (24.5 inches) of rain fell in Kelantan, its highest total since 1967.
Two Americans have been accused of child abuse in Uganda. The country’s state prosecutors allege that Nicholas Spencer and his wife, Mackenzie Leigh Mathias Spencer, “constantly tortured” their 10-year-old foster son between 2020 and 2022. The charges against the couple were expanded from “aggravated torture of a ch…
A 97-year-old woman who worked at the Stutthof Nazi concentration camp in Poland as a teenager was given a suspended two-year sentence by a German court on December 20, 2022. The court ruled that Irmgard Furchner, who worked as a typist from 1943-1945, aided and abetted the murder of more than 10,500 people.
Top Iranian General Esmail Ghaani openly threatened the media with dire consequences in a fiery speech delivered at an event in the capital Tehran on December 20, 2022. His remarks came at an increasingly precarious time for the nation’s journalists who have for the past three months been covering a wave of protests…
A 23-year-old man from York in northern England was charged on December 19, 2022, with “threatening behaviour” after several eggs were hurled at King Charles during a visit to the city in November. Patrick Thelwell will appear at York Magistrates’ Court on January 20, the Crown Prosecution Service said, following an…
A US House of Representatives select committee on December 19, 2022, referred Donald Trump to the Justice Department to face four criminal charges, including obstruction, conspiracy and inciting an insurrection. The referral concludes an 18-month-long investigation into the former president’s effort to overturn the …
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — In the months after a West Virginia court permanently took away their right to parent their daughters this past April, Jackie Snodgrass and her husband were left in a quiet house. The kids’ rooms remained untouched. The same dolls and stuffed animals were arranged on their younger daughter’s bed.…
By the time Karl Ashanti neared his office in the New York City Law Department’s headquarters in March 2018, the police were shutting down Park Place. Ice had fallen from the buildings above, so an officer had cordoned off the area. Ashanti flashed his work ID and the cop let him through. Then, about two-thirds of t…
A police officer was blown off course by strong winds while he was looking for cars to seat passengers of a vehicle that got stuck in a snowdrift in western China.
December 2022 marks a decade since the horrific gang rape and murder that took place on a bus in Delhi, India. On December 16, 2012, Jyoti Singh was brutally attacked and tortured before being dumped along a roadside. The 23-year-old died 13 days later from her injuries, but managed to identify her attackers. Ten ye…
A once lively and thriving party spot during the festive season, Itaewon, has turned into a sombre district in the South Korean capital Seoul after a deadly Halloween crowd crush killed 158 people and injured 196 others. Despite the efforts of some venues to heighten Christmas cheer in Seoul’s party district with fe…
A funeral was held on December 17, 2022, for a 31-year-old woman who was killed the previous day by a deadly landslide on the outskirts of Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. Rescuers continue to look for victims of the December 16 tragedy at a campsite on an organic farm. Officials say 24 bodies have been recovered …
Four people are in custody on suspicion they forced a 32-year-old woman into a van and drove away from a bus stop outside Hong Kong’s Stanley Prison on 17 December, 2022. Video circulating on social media shows prison officers and onlookers trying to intervene during the incident but to no avail. Police later arrest…
A landslide in Malaysia killed at least 18 campers in Batang Kali in the early hours of December 16, 2022, with 22 people still missing. The campsite in Selangor state, located 45 minutes northeast of the capital Kuala Lumpur, is a popular getaway. The Southeast Asian country has deployed almost 400 rescuers to join…
Survivors of a deadly mass shooting at a Colorado gay nightclub testified at the US Congress on December 14, 2022. They spoke of threats and violence against the LGBTQ community and urged lawmakers to pass a law banning certain semi-automatic weapons.
Beijing removed six consulate officials, including Consul General Zheng Xiyuan, from the UK, British Foreign Minister James Cleverly announced on December 14, 2022. Greater Manchester Police had wanted to question the diplomats over a confrontation with a protester outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester, and ha…
Angry Morocco fans clashed with police in Brussels after their football team was defeated by France in the Fifa World Cup semi-final on December 14, 2022. The fans, some wrapped in national flags, set fires on a road in the Belgian capital and threw fireworks at police officers, who used water cannons and tear gas t…
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China marked the 85th anniversary of the Nanking massacre in the lead-up to World War II, with a national memorial ceremony on December 13, 2022. In 1937, Japanese troops invaded the city of Nanking, now known as Nanjing. For over six weeks, nearly 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were murdered, according to s…
Iran announced on December 12, 2022, that it had hanged a man in a public execution. It was the second known death sentence carried out against a protester since the country cracked down on anti-government demonstrations that first flared in September. Majidreza Rahnavard was convicted of “moharebeh”, known as “wagi…
The bomb maker responsible for the deadly attacks in Bali in 2002 was released on parole on December 7, 2022, after serving part of his 20-year sentence. Indonesian authorities said Umar Patek, a former member of an al-Qaeda-linked group called Jemaah Islamiah, was ‘successfully reformed’ in prison. The bombings kil…
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PHOENIX — In 2015, Nydea Richards decided to move her family to the nation’s fastest-growing metropolitan area, in search of lower crime and better weather than in her hometown of Milwaukee. She was pregnant at the time.
The authorities in Germany have arrested 25 alleged affiliates of a far-right group on December 7, 2022, after uncovering what prosecutors said was a plot to violently overthrow the government and install a new leader. The arrests came after more than 3,000 police officers across 11 German states carried out raids a…
Travellers and businesses on the Indonesian island of Bali have voiced concern about possible harms to the country’s pandemic-hit tourism industry after parliament passed new laws banning extramarital sex and cohabitation. The new criminal codes, which also ban insulting the president, were approved on December 6, 2…
Mongolia’s president reportedly has proposed a plan to dissolve parliament and dismiss government following days of demonstrations over soaring inflation and corruption in the coal industry. Thousands of people have joined rallies in the capital Ulaanbaatar’s Sukhbaatar Square since December 4, 2022, following alleg…
Bodies of 70 inmates from the largest prison in the Philippines were laid to rest in what local officials described as the biggest-ever mass burial held by the facility. Weeks earlier, police had discovered corpses of prisoners who died in custody among decomposing remains at a nearby funeral home. The bodies had pi…
Areas of Ukraine were again plunged into freezing darkness after a fresh wave of deadly missile attacks by Russian forces on December 5, 2022. A region surrounding the Ukrainian capital Kyiv was among the places facing extended emergency blackouts after the strikes targeting public utilities. At least four people we…
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on November 30, 2022, that Canada stands with Chinese demonstrators protesting against the country’s zero-Covid policy. China-Canada relations have worsened since the arrest in Canada of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in 2018 and the subsequent detention of two Canadians in…
Qatar police stopped a French journalist from filming groups of Iranians protesting against and in support of the Tehran government. The clash happened in the capital Doha near a Fifa World Cup venue on November 29, 2022. The “Women, Life, Freedom” shirts worn by anti-government protesters have been a frequent point…
A district court in Tokyo has ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage is constitutional. But the decision, handed down on November 30, 2022, added that the lack of legal protection for same-sex families violates their human rights. Plaintiffs in the case said the ruling signifies “progress”, saying they could pave the…
It has been a month since the deadly crowd crush at Itaewon in the South Korean capital of Seoul that claimed 158 lives on October 29, 2022. Authorities have come under heavy criticism for their response that night, after it emerged that emergency calls were made warning police about the dangerous crowd build-up bef…
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Dozens of people gathered in Hong Kong’s central business district on November 28, 2022, to mourn victims of a deadly fire in Xinjiang that sparked protests in mainland China against Beijing’s stringent zero-Covid policy. Among them was activist Alexandra Wong Fung-yiu, nicknamed “Grandma Wong”, who reportedly had h…
Hong Kong’s leader said on November 28, 2022, that he would seek an interpretation of the city’s national security law from the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, after the city’s top court upheld a decision allowing a British barrister to defend jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying against charges of…
Angry Belgium football fans brought havoc to the capital Brussels after their World Cup team’s shock 0-2 loss to Morocco on November 27, 2022. Nearly 100 police officers used tear gas and water cannons to disperse rioters who torched vehicles and smashed shop windows after watching the match at the Fifa World Cup un…
Chinese-Canadian pop star Kris Wu Yifan was sentenced to 13 years in prison for sexual offenses on November 25, 2022. Accused and charged of date rape last year, he was found guilty of raping three women at his home in 2020. He was also fined 600 million yuan (US$84 million) for tax evasion.
The United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution on November 24, 2022, launching an investigation of Iran’s deadly crackdown on anti-government protesters following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. The Iranian woman died in police custody in September after being arrested for allegedly not wearing he…
Thousands of unionised truckers in South Korea kicked off their second major strike seeking better pay and working conditions in less than six months on November 24, 2022. The action is already disrupting supply chains across the world's 10th-largest economy, affecting carmakers, the cement industry and steel produc…
Hong Kong’s pricey property market has a dark side – cramped and claustrophobic subdivided flats, where people live in spaces as small as 15 sq ft (1.4 sq metres). What is life like inside a flat smaller than a prison cell? SCMP explores the city’s shoebox flats through the lives of those who call these tiny spaces …
A Hong Kong court has fined retired Hong Kong Cardinal Zen and five other trustees up to HK$4,000 (US$512) each for failing to properly register a fund set up to provide legal defence for 2019 anti-government protesters. The now-defunct 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund was established by Zen and his co-defendants. The c…
Anwar Ibrahim has been sworn in as Malaysia’s new prime minister on November 24, 2022, ending the political deadlock in the country. His swearing-in was a long time coming, after years of political ups and downs, including a decade in prison on sodomy and corruption charges, which he said were politically motivated.
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Russian missiles knocked out electricity in the Kyiv region and other areas across Ukraine on November 23, 2022. At least 10 people have been killed in the latest series of attacks that have caused blackouts across the country. Ukrainian officials said a newborn baby is among the dead after a missile hit a maternity…
Rescuers pulled five-year-old Azka from the rubble in the quake-damaged Indonesian town of Cianjur two days after the disaster struck on November 21. Some 40 people are still missing in the West Java town, and more than 270 people have been killed by the 5.6-magnitude quake.
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One person has died and at least 28 others were injured in Thailand’s southern Narathiwat province, after a car bomb exploded outside a police compound on November 22, 2022. The blast occurred soon after the car was parked, and police were checking security camera footage to identify the suspect and are investigatin…
Six former senior executives of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper have admitted conspiring with their ex-boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying in seeking international sanctions on Beijing and Hong Kong officials in breach of the city’s national security law. The High Court on November 22, 2022, recorded the first conviction…
