In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, people gather near the site of an explosion in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016. Kyrgyzstan's deputy prime minister says a suicide bomber has rammed his car into the gate of the Chinese embassy compound in the capital Bishkek, detonating a bomb and injuring three embassy employees.
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — A suspected suicide bomber on Tuesday crashed a car through the entrance of the Chinese Embassy in the Kyrgyzstan capital of Bishkek, detonating a bomb that killed the attacker and wounded three embassy employees.
The Central Asian nation’s interior ministry says the person who drove the vehicle through the gate died when the bombdetonated. The three people injured are Kyrgyz nationals: two 17-year-old embassy gardeners and an unidentified woman.
The interior ministry described it as a terrorist attack. Deputy Prime Minister Zhenish Razakov in comments to the Interfax news agency called it a suicide bombing.
Kyrgyzstan, a landlocked former Soviet republic that borders China, has a predominantly Muslim population that is considered moderate in outlook.
BANGKOK — Early on a Sunday morning, 26-year-old Narawut Puangkesorn walked atop the sacred mount that is Bangkok’s Wat Saket in meditation. It was after 3am on Aug. 21, and Narawut, who just graduated from university at the top of his class, circled the temple for more than an hour, according to security footage. Police said at one point he spread his arms like a bird.
At 5:30am, a caretaker heard a scream, followed by the ringing of a bell. It wasn’t until 6:30am that a monk found Narawut, who was still breathing but insensate with a fractured skull.
Narawut was later pronounced dead at Bangkok Metropolitan Administration General Hospital, and police are investigating his death.
The nun who takes care of the Golden Mountain, Warudee Pongprasat, told police she heard him screaming but was too scared to go look.
Traces of blood were found on a bell on the Golden Mount’s third level. There was also blood along on a walkway on the second level.
No security cameras were pointed at the area where he was found by the monk who was cleaning the grounds.
Bangkok Metropolitan Police commander Sanit Mahatavorn inspects the scene inside Wat Saket Sunday.
Fingerprints were collected from the bells. Bangkok metro police chief Sanit Mahatavorn said Monday they have yet to determine whether Narawut committed suicide or was murdered.
“I told every officer we must be inquisitive about it first and try to prove it,” Sanit said. “I lean both ways. Anyway, people inside the temple including the nun believe no one was there to hurt him.”
Aumphai Puangkesorn, Narawut’s 54 year-old mother, told police her son had just graduated at the top of his class from Bangkok University and was helping at the family-owned restaurant.
Aumphai said Narawut booked a flight to go to a friend’s wedding in Surat Thani earlier that day but later backed out. The mother said he asked her 500 baht before leaving home at 10pm.
Narawut’s friend, Rutthorn Piromporbhakdi, agreed with his mother that Narawut liked to make merit.
Rutthorn also showed police Narawut’s last Facebook update posted on Aug.14.
”If we know the last day of our life and can ask for anything, what would we wish for?” it read.
In January, Wat Saket’s former abbot Phra Phromsuthi was found dead by hanging inside the temple. It was ruled a suicide.
Five defendants leave a Ratchaburi prison on July 11 after being granted release on bail. Photo: Matichon
BANGKOK — Four activists and a reporter accused of violating a law passed before the Aug. 7 charter referendum have found an unlikely ally in Election Commissioner Somchai Srisutthiyakorn, whose office is tasked with enforcing the law.
The five suspects were indicted Monday for distributing “Vote No” stickers in Ratchaburi province on July 10. The provincial prosecutor said their actions qualified as a crime under the Referendum Act, but Somchai said he disagreed.
The law specifically banned dissemination of materials that were “false, rude or incite unrest,” Somchai said, which does not apply to the packs of stickers handed out by the activists.
“They were printed material, but were they false? Were they inciting unrest? Were they rude? No,” Somchai said by telephone Tuesday. “It was just a statement of their political stance.”
The election commissioner said he’d gladly take the stand and defend the activists in court.
“I’m willing to testify to the court that their actions were not wrong,” Somchai said.
Four of the suspects are members of the anti-junta New Democracy Movement, while the other is a reporter for Prachatai news agency. The reporter, Taweesak Kerdpoka, was arrested and later indicted despite his protest that he was merely covering the activists’ campaign.
They stand accused of violating Section 61 of the Referendum Act, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail.
According to a report published by Thai Lawyers for Human Rights group, the prosecutor also recommended that the court suspend the five defendants’ voting rights for 10 years if they are convicted.
Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka in 1971's 'Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.'
Gene Wilder, the frizzy-haired actor who brought his deft comedic touch to such unforgettable roles as the neurotic accountant in “The Producers” and the mad scientist of “Young Frankenstein,” has died. He was 83.
Wilder’s nephew said Monday that the actor and writer died late Sunday at his home in Stamford, Connecticut, of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. No funeral arrangements have been announced.
Jordan Walker-Pearlman said in a statement that Wilder was diagnosed with the disease three years ago, but kept the condition private so as not to disappoint fans.
Wilder started his acting career on the stage, but millions knew him from his work in the movies, especially his collaborations with Mel Brooks on “The Producers,” ”Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein.” The last film — with Wilderplaying a California-born descendant of the mad scientist, insisting that his name is pronounced “Frahn-ken-SHTEEN” — was co-written by Brooks and Wilder and earned the pair an Oscar nomination for adapted screenplay.
“Gene Wilder, one of the truly great talents of our time, is gone,” Brooks wrote in a statement Monday. “He blessed every film we did together with his special magic and he blessed my life with his friendship. He will be so missed.”
With his unkempt hair and big, buggy eyes, Wilder was a master at playing panicked characters caught up in schemes that only a madman such as Brooks could devise, whether reviving a monster in “Young Frankenstein” or bilking Broadway in “The Producers.” Brooks would call him “God’s perfect prey, the victim in all of us.”
Actor Gene Wilder in a 2005 file photo. Photo: Steven Senne / Associated Press
But he also knew how to keep it cool as the boozing gunslinger in “Blazing Saddles” or the charming candy man in the children’s favorite “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” His craziest role: the therapist having an affair with a sheep in Woody Allen’s “Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex.”
Tweeted Jim Carrey: “Gene Wilder was one of the funniest and sweetest energies ever to take a human form. If there’s a heaven he has a Golden Ticket.”
Wilder was close friends with Richard Pryor and their contrasting personas — Wilder uptight, Pryor loose — were ideal for comedy. They co-starred in four films: “Silver Streak,” ”Stir Crazy,” ”See No Evil, Hear No Evil” and “Another You.” And they created several memorable scenes, particularly when Pryor provided Wilder with directions on how to “act black” as they tried to avoid police in “Silver Streak.”
But Wilder would insist he was no comedian. He told Robert Osborne in a 2013 interview that it was the biggest misconception about him.
“What a comic, what a funny guy, all that stuff! And I’m not. I’m really not. Except in a comedy in films,” Wilder said. “But I make my wife laugh once or twice in the house, but nothing special. But when people see me in a movie and it’s funny then they stop and say things to me about ‘how funny you were.’ But I don’t think I’m that funny. I think I can be in the movies.”
A Milwaukee native, Wilder was born Jerome Silberman on June 11, 1933. When he was 6, his mother suffered a heart attack that left her a semi-invalid. He soon began improvising comedy skits to entertain her, the first indication of his future career.
He started taking acting classes at age 12. In 1961, he became a member of Lee Strasberg’s prestigious Actor’s Studio in Manhattan.
That same year, he made both his off-Broadway and Broadway debuts using the stage name Gene Wilder. He won the Clarence Derwent Award, given to promising newcomers, for the Broadway work in Graham Greene’s comedy “The Complaisant Lover.”
A key break came in 1963 when he co-starred with Anne Bancroft in Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage,” and met Brooks, her future husband.
Brooks cast Wilder in “The Producers” as Leo Bloom, an accountant who discovers the liberating joys of greed and corruption as he and Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) conceive a Broadway flop titled “Springtime For Hitler” and plan to flee with the money raised for the show’s production. Wilder’s performance received a supporting actor Oscar nod.
Before starring in “The Producers,” he had a small role as the hostage of gangsters in the 1967 classic “Bonnie and Clyde.” He peaked in the mid-1970s with the twin Brooks hits “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein.”
Wilder went on to write several screenplays and direct five features, including “The Woman in Red” and “Haunted Honeymoon,” in which he co-starred with his third wife, Gilda Radner. The two met while making the 1982 film “Hanky-Panky” and married in 1984.
After Radner died of ovarian cancer in 1989, Wilder spent much of his time after promoting cancer research and opened a support facility for cancer patients. In 1991, he testified before Congress about the need for increased testing for cancer.
That same year, he appeared in his final film role: “Another You” with Pryor.
Wilder worked mostly in television in recent years, including appearances on “Will & Grace” — one of which earned him an Emmy Award for outstanding guest actor — and a starring role in the short-lived sitcom “Something Wilder.” In 2015, he was among the voices in the animated “The Yo Gabba Gabba! Movie 2.”
As for why he stopped appearing on the big screen, Wilder said in 2013 he was turned off by the noise and foul language in modern movies.
“I didn’t want to do the kind of junk I was seeing,” he said in an interview. “I didn’t want to do 3D for instance. I didn’t want to do ones where there’s just bombing and loud and swearing, so much swearing… can’t they just stop and talk instead of swearing?”
Wilder is survived by his wife, Karen, whom he married in 1991, and his daughter from a previous marriage, Katherine, from whom he was estranged.
Military officers raid an underground betting parlor Sunday night in Bangkok’s Phra Khanong district.
BANGKOK — Four top officers at the Phra Khanong Police Station were moved to inactive posts Monday after the military raided a gambling den operating in their midst.
The transfer came after the military on Sunday arrested 16 gamblers and three organizers for betting on football games. Soldiers said they found a list of cops who were paid bribes among the evidence collected.
That led to the appointment of a team to look into collusion by local police. The gambling house was located in Soi Wachiratham Sathit 70, which is in the jurisdiction of Phra Khanong police.
Four officers moved to the Metropolitan Police’s Division 5 for 30 days were Lt. Col Withoon Khunboonchan, Lt. Col. Somsit Santasanachok, Maj. Sanphet Jiraakharakul and Capt. Jakkarate Upatham.
Transfer to an inactive post is a routine disciplinary action for wrongdoing by members of the bureaucracy, which includes the police force.
The station commander was cleared as he was away on vacation.
Deputy police spokesman Krissana Phatthanacharoen said Monday there were two matters to investigate: whether local police were directly involved or just neglected to perform their duties.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled Capt. Jakkarate’s name.
A sketch and photo of alleged bomber Asmeen Katemmahdi, who was the subject of a military-approved arrest warrant on Monday.
PHETCHABURI — A man already wanted for car bombing a mall last year was named Monday in the third arrest warrant linked to the bomb attacks which struck the southern region earlier this month.
A military court approved the warrant for 29-year-old Pattani resident Asmeen Katemmahdi (transcribed from Thai) for the same charges of possessing explosives and attempted arson as Ruslan Baima, the second suspect named earlier. Both men are accused of being behind the four explosions in the resort town of Hua Hin on Aug. 11 and 12, which killed two people and injured dozens of others.
Asmeen is also suspected of being behind a car bomb that exploded in April 2015 in the underground parking lot of the Central Festival Samui shopping mall. An outstanding warrant exists for his arrest.
At the time, authorities considered the possibility that the blast, which wounded seven people including tourists, might have been an expansion of the southern separatist movement.
Head police investigator Gen. Srivara Ransibrahmanakul on Monday said Asmeen is a trained insurgent with a background in committing such attacks.
Srivara still refused to say whether authorities think the recent attacks were linked to the insurgency because the separatists, he said, usually only carry out attacks in the border provinces where they are seeking independence.
Asmeen and Ruslan were among three men identified as suspects in the Hua Hin bombings in sketches released Wednesday by police. Srivara said police are trying to confirm the identity of the third suspect.
The first two suspects to be identified were Ruslan and Ahama Lengha, who is sought in connection with the explosions in Phuket. All remain at large.
Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom speaks during an Intelligence and Security select committee hearing at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand in a July 3, 2013, file photo. Photo: Mark Mitchell / New Zealand Herald / Associated Press
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom wants to livestream his legal battle against the United States on YouTube.
Dotcom’s lawyers have asked if they can film his extradition appeal, which began Monday at New Zealand’s High Court in Auckland. The U.S. opposes the plan.
Justice Murray Gilbert, the New Zealand judge hearing the appeal, criticized Dotcom’s request for coming at the last-minute but said he’d let other media discuss it before making a decision, the National Business Review newspaper reported.
A New Zealand judge last year ruled that Dotcom and three of his colleagues could be extradited to the U.S. to face conspiracy, racketeering and money-laundering charges. If found guilty, they could face decades in jail.
The ruling came nearly four years after the U.S. shut down Dotcom’s file-sharing site Megaupload, which prosecutors say was widely used by people to illegally download songs, television shows and movies.
Megaupload was once one of the internet’s most popular sites. Prosecutors say it raked in at least USD$175 million (6 billion baht) and cost copyright holders more than USD$500 million (17.3 billion baht).
But Dotcom and his colleagues argue they can’t be held responsible for people who chose to use the site for illegal purposes.
In his application to livestream the case, Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield said the streaming would have a 10-minute delay to ensure sensitive information could be censored, the NBR newspaper reported.
Mansfield also argued livestreaming would ensure balanced and fast reporting, as opposed to the constraints of traditional media.
Dotcom and colleagues Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato are seeking to halt their extradition. They say lower court judge Nevin Dawson didn’t give their arguments a fair hearing.
Grant Illingworth, the lawyer for Ortmann and van der Kolk, told the high court Monday the case “has gone off the rails,” NBR reported.
Born in Germany as Kim Schmitz, Dotcom has long enjoyed a flamboyant lifestyle. He was arrested in New Zealand in 2012 after a dramatic police raid on his mansion.
Out on bail soon after, he released a music album, started another Internet file-sharing company called Mega, and launched a political party which unsuccessfully contested the nation’s 2014 election. More recently, Dotcom has promised to launch a reboot of Megaupload next year.
ATMs in front of the Government Savings Bank headquarters in Bangkok are out of service as seen on Tuesday.
PHUKET — Police identified a Russian suspect Monday in the nationwide hacking of Government Savings Bank ATMs last month.
Rustam Shambasov, 29, is believed to have withdrawn 3,040,000 baht in 13 transactions from ATMs in Bangkok, Phuket and Phetburi provinces. He is the first suspect police linked to the crime since the bank revealed on Aug. 23 that more than 12 million baht was stolen from its cash machines.
“We believe the money is still in the country,” said police Gen. Panya Mamen, who is heading the investigation.
The large-scale hack, in which state-owned ATMs in at least six provinces were infected with malware, happened during the last two weeks of July and was the first of its kind in Thailand.
The attack targeted vulnerable machines made by U.S.-based NCR Corp. The bank shut down more than 3,000 such ATMs since it acknowledged the hack Aug. 8.
An ATM camera purportedly shows Russian suspect Rustam Shambasov withdrawing money in July in Phuket.
Police believed there were more than 10 perpetrators behind the digital heist which was performed by inserting modified ATM cards into the machines, prompting them to dispense cash.
The bank said the stolen money was withdrawn from 21 machines in Bangkok, Phetburi, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Phuket, Surat Thani and Chumphon provinces.
Panya said Shambasov arrived in Phuket from Beijing on July 14 and started withdrawing money the next day. On Aug. 1, he flew out of Bangkok to Moscow.
No arrest warrant has been issued. Panya said police are collecting more evidence to support a warrant and identify other suspects.
Ariya Jutanugarn poses with the trophy after winning the LPGA Canadian Open golf tornament Sunday in Alberta, Canada. Photo: Jeff McIntosh / The Canadian Press / Associated Press
PRIDDIS, Alberta — Five months after giving away a major championship with a late meltdown, Ariya Jutanugarn ran away with the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open at chilly Priddis Greens for her fifth victory in 10 events.
Jutanugarn made a 12-birdie putt on the final hole for a 6-under 66 and a four-stroke victory over South Korea’s Sei Young Kim. The 20-year-old Thai player won nine days after withdrawing from the Rio Olympics because of a left knee injury, a problem that almost forced her to skip the event.
“I feel like I’m going to withdraw this week because my knee hurt so bad last week,” Jutanugarn said. “But when I got here on Monday and Tuesday, it’s getting a lot better, and first round it’s fine.”
Bundled up in a winter jacket between shots with the temperature in the lows 50s on the overcast afternoon, the second-ranked Jutanugarn broke a tie with top-ranked Lydia Lo for the LPGA Tour victory lead.
Jutanugarn focused on having fun — and did. Blasting 2-iron and 3-wood off the driving holes on the tree-lined course, she birdied the par-5 seventh and par-3 eighth to get to 19 under, then pulled away with birdies on the par-5 12th, par-4 14th, par-3 15th and par-5 18th.
“I felt like I wanted to have fun and be happy,” Jutanugarn said. “No matter what’s going to happen, I can handle it.”
That wasn’t the case all that long ago. In April at the ANA Inspiration in the California desert, Jutanugarn — at the time, best known for blowing a two-stroke lead with a closing triple bogey at age 17 in the 2013 LPGA Thailand — bogeyed the final three holes to hand the major title to Ko.
Jutanugarn rebounded in a big way, breaking through in May with three straight victories in Alabama, Virginia and Michigan. She won the Women’s British Open in the event before the Olympics, and made it two in a row on the tour Sunday in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies.
“After I won my first tournament, I feel like I reached my goal, and after that I feel like I don’t care like what my ranking going to be. I don’t care if I’m going to win the tournament or not. The only thing I want to be is I really want to be happy on the course.”
She has five victories in 10 events a year after missing 10 straight cuts.
“I just feel like at that time, the only focus, ‘I’m scared to miss the cut. I really want to make the cut,'” Jutanugarn said. “But after that I feel like I changed my focus, so right now my focus is like what’s going to be good, like what I have to do to be good, so I’m thinking about like what is under my control, not thinking about like anything else.”
Jutanugarn matched the tournament record for relation of 23 under set by So Yeon Ryu two years ago at London Hunt in Ontario and the mark for strokes of 265 set by Ryu and also accomplished by Ko in 2013 at par-70 Royal Mayfair in Edmonton.
Kim, a two-time winner this year, closed with a 65. South Korea’s In Gee Chun, the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open champion, was third at 18 under after a 69. Canada’s Alena Sharp had the best result of her LPGA Tour career, birdieing the final two holes for a 67 to finish fourth at 16 under.
“I can’t really describe how great it feels to play this well in Canada,” said Sharp, from Hamilton, Ontario.
Australia’s Karrie Webb (64) and Sweden’s Anna Nordqvist (68) tied for fifth at 15 under. Webb won the 1999 du Maurier Classic, the then-major championship that folded because of Canada’s restrictions on tobacco promotions, at Priddis Greens. She was second behind Suzann Pettersen at the course in 2009.
“On the back nine, everything went in,” Webb said.
Three-time champion Ko had a 69 to tie for seventh at 13 under.
“I was a little far away going into today,” the 19-year-old New Zealander said. “But it’s been a great week.”
She won three of the previous four years, the first two as an amateur.
Canadian star Brooke Henderson shot a 69 to tie for 14th at 11 under. The 18-year-old from Smith Falls, Ontario, is already thinking about next year’s tournament at Ottawa Hunt.
“We recently became members at the Ottawa Hunt, so it’s my home golf course,” Henderson said. “It’s only 45 minutes from my house.”
She also will play in her home province next week in the Manulife LPGA Classic in Cambridge.
DIVOTS: Japan’s Ayako Uehara had a hole-in-one for the second straight day. After acing the 11th with a hybrid from 158 yards Saturday, she holed a 7-iron from 164 yards on the eighth. She’s the fourth player in LPGA Tour history with two aces in a week. She tied for 10th at 12 under after a 67. … Players 23 or younger have won 21 of the 23 tour events this year.
People celebrate the announcement Wednesday from Havana, Cuba, that delegates of Colombia's government and leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia reached a peace accord to end their half-century civil war Colombia. Photo: Fernando Vergara / Associated Press
BOGOTA, Colombia — A permanent cease-fire is taking effect in Colombia on Monday, the latest step in bringing an end to 52 years of bloody combat between the government and the country’s biggest rebel group.
The commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia announced Sunday that his fighters would cease hostilities beginning at 12:01am as a result of the peace accord the two sides reached at midweek.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos made a similar announcement Friday, saying the military would halt attacks on the FARC beginning Monday.
FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, also known as Timochenko, made his announcement in Havana, where rebel and government negotiators talked for four years to reach the deal on ending one of the world’s longest-running conflicts.
“Never again will parents be burying their sons and daughters killed in the war,” Londono said. “All rivalries and grudges will remain in the past.”
Colombia is expected to hold a national referendum Oct. 2 to give voters the chance to approve the accord, which would end political violence that has claimed more than 220,000 lives and driven more than 5 million people from their homes over five decades. Polls say most Colombians loathe the rebel group but will likely endorse the deal anyway.
Top FARC commanders are planning to gather one final time in mid-September to ratify the deal.
Under the 297-page accord, FARC guerrillas are supposed to turn over their weapons within six months after the deal is formally signed. In return, the FARC’s still unnamed future political movement will be given a minimum 10 congressional seats — five in the lower house, five in the Senate — for two legislative periods.
In addition, 16 lower house seats will be created for grassroots activists in rural areas traditionally neglected by the state and in which existing political parties will be banned from running candidates. Critics of the peace process contend that will further boost the rebels’ post-conflict political power.
After 2026, both arrangements would end and the former rebels would have to demonstrate their political strength at the ballot box.
Not all hostilities are ending under the deal with the FARC. The much-smaller National Liberation Army remains active in Colombia, although it is pursuing its own peace deal with the government.
