World Briefs

HONG KONG The violent crash of a double-decker bus in Hong Kong killed six people and injured more than 30 others yesterday, police said. The crash in the New Territories tore away much of the left side of the bus and ripped a jagged hole in its roof. Police said three women and three men died. Fire services initially said four people were killed.

THAILAND Police yesterday arrested a convicted serial killer who was accused of a fresh killing just seven months after his early release from prison. Somkid Poompuang (pictured, masked) was arrested aboard a train after a nationwide manhunt launched when he was identified as a suspect in Sunday’s killing of a hotel maid in the northeastern province of Khon Kaen.

INDONESIA Authorities said that they have arrested six foreigners for allegedly trying to smuggle drugs onto the tourist island of Bali. A Swiss man, a Thai man, a Singaporean woman, a Chilean man and two Hong Kong men wearing orange detainee uniforms were paraded with their feet and hands tied at a news conference in Denpasar, the capital of Bali province.

INDIA’s Supreme Court rejected the final appeal of one of the four men sentenced to death for the 2012 fatal gang rape of a woman on a moving bus in New Delhi, paving the way for the four to be hanged. The gruesome case made international headlines and exposed the scope of sexual violence against women in India, prompting lawmakers to stiffen penalties in rape cases.

JAPAN A Tokyo court awarded damages to a freelance journalist yesterday in a high-profile rape case that involves an attacker known for his close ties with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ultra-conservative supporters. The court ordered former television newsman Noriyuki Yamaguchi to pay 3.3 million yen to freelance journalist Shiori Ito (pictured) for physical and psychological pain resulting from his sexual assault.

US A new lawsuit accuses several of the world’s largest technology firms of knowingly profiting from children laboring under brutal conditions in African cobalt mines. The suit, filed this week in Washington by the nongovernmental organization International Rights Advocates, seeks damages from Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Tesla and Alphabet, the parent company of Google.

AUSTRALIA experienced its hottest day on record and temperatures are expected to soar even higher as heatwave conditions embrace most of the country. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said the average temperature across the country of 40.9 degrees Celsius Tuesday beat the record of 40.3 Celsius from Jan. 7, 2013.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decisive victory in last week’s general election provided little comfort to Britain’s once world-beating financial services industry, which has been battered by Brexit for more than three years.