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IOL News
4 days ago
- IOL News
The peasants are revolting; know your place meddling woman or lose your head! and a murdering president
Charles Taylor Ex Liberian president, warlord and war criminal in court awaits his fate. What happened on this day in history: May 30 1381 England's Peasants' Revolt begins. Also called Wat Tyler's Rebellion, it was the first great popular rebellion in English history. Its immediate cause was the imposition of the unpopular poll tax, which brought to a head the economic discontent that had been growing since the middle of the century. 1431 Unjustly condemned, French heroine Joan of Arc is burnt at the stake by the English. 1536 England's King Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour, a lady-in-waiting to his first two wives. Married the day after the execution of Anne Boleyn, Seymour's only known involvement in national affairs was met with a blunt reminder of the fate that her predecessor met when she 'meddled in his affairs'. 1806 Future US president Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson accused Jackson's wife of bigamy. 1815 The British troopship Arniston is wrecked at Waenhuiskrans (Arniston) after the captain mistakes Cape Agulhas for Cape Point, and heads north for St Helena thinking he has rounded the Cape. The ship grounds. 1883 A stampede on New York's Brooklyn Bridge, caused by a rumour it was going to collapse, kills 12 people. 1899 Wild West outlaw Pearl Hart (1871–1955) holds up a stage coach in Arizona. It is one of the last stagecoach robberies in the Old West. 1900 Lady Violet Cecil writes to Britain's Lord Salisbury on conditions in Bloemfontein, noting: 'Far more have been killed in our hospitals than by Boer bullets... Men are dying by the hundreds who could easily be saved.' 1942 Japanese submarines shell naval bases in Australia and Madagascar. 1967 Daredevil Robert 'Evel' Knievel jumps his motorcycle over 16 cars in Gardena, California. 1972 Members of the Japanese Red Army carry out the Lod Airport massacre near Tel Aviv in Israel, killing 24 people and injuring 78. 2012 Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is sentenced to 50 years in jail for war crimes. 2017 A suicide bomb in the diplomatic quarter of Kabul, Afghanistan, kills more than 150 people and injures 400. 2024 Vermont becomes the first US state to pass a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay for damages caused by climate change. DAILY NEWS
IOL News
19-05-2025
- General
- IOL News
Can you trust your government not to nuke you?
1499 Catherine of Aragon, 12, is married by proxy to Arthur, Prince of Wales, 13. 1536 The Queen of England, Anne Boleyn, and second wife of Henry VIII, is beheaded. 1743 French physicist Jean-Pierre Christin develops the centigrade temperature scale. 1887 Zululand is annexed by Great Britain. 1890 Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh is born. 1943 Royal Air Force bombers successfully attack dams in the German Ruhr Valley using innovative ball-shaped bouncing bombs that skipped along the water and exploded against the dam walls. The dams provide drinking water for 4 million people and 75% of the electrical power for local industry. 1953 The nuclear bomb 'Dirty Harry' explodes over Nevada, leaving a heavy coating of radioactive dust on valleys and towns downwind in Nevada, Arizona and Utah, and wreaking a terrible toll on many families, as the cancer rate starts to increase. (It was one of 100 tests above ground, that, despite official denials, turned swathes of the desert radioactive, and raised the question: how much should you trust your government? Shot downwind a year later, near the town of St George where the fallout was reportedly heavy, the film, The Conqueror allegedly killed its star, John Wayne, leading lady Susan Hayward, director Dick Powell and dozens of others – of the 220 film crew members, 91 (41.36% of the crew) developed cancer during their lifetime, while 46 (20.91%) died from it. Claudia Peterson, a 'Downwinder' activist and resident, who lost many relatives, had an epiphany when visiting families in Kazakhstan where the USSR did its testing: 'I was afraid of these people my whole childhood and then discovered they weren't monsters. It was our governments that were killing us'.) 1998 Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria is renamed Thaba Tshwane. 2018 Britain's, Prince Harry marries US actress Meghan Markle marry in Windsor, watched by 1.9 billion people. Relations between the couple soon sour, with the latter decamping for the US after giving up their public duties, but not their titles and becoming a source of intense public debate. DAILY NEWS
Straits Times
19-05-2025
- Straits Times
Non-practising elderly doctor given maximum fine of $10k over anti-Islam remarks online
Kho Kwang Po, 85, pleaded guilty to one count of performing an act that wounded the religious feelings of others. PHOTO: SHIN MIN DAILY NEWS SINGAPORE - A doctor who posted anti-Islam content on his personal Facebook page in 2021 and left the country in 2022 while he was under investigation, has been given the maximum fine of $10,000. On May 19, Kho Kwang Po, 85, pleaded guilty to one count of performing an act that wounded the religious feelings of others. Kho, non-practising doctor, will have to spend two weeks behind bars if he fails to pay the amount. His name could not be found on the Singapore Medical Council's database of registered healthcare professionals when The Straits Times searched it on May 19. Court documents did not disclose what spurred the Singaporean to commit the offence, which Deputy Public Prosecutor Sean Teh said was done with 'deliberate intention of wounding the racial feelings of Muslims in general'. Kho was the only person who had access to the Facebook account, DPP Teh added. On April 21, 2021, Kho made the incriminating post available for the public to view, comprising screenshots of remarks he had earlier made on Facebook in 2016. About two months later, in June 2021 , one person lodged a police report that 'Kho Kwang Po has been openly making racist posts on his Facebook. The posts are highly insulting towards Islam'. Later that month, another person alerted the authorities that Kho had been posting seditious material 'denigrating Islam' on Facebook for several years. Kho left Singapore for an undisclosed location in January 2022 before he returned in October 2024, the police had said earlier. He was charged in court on Feb 26, 2025. For performing an act that wounded the religious feelings of others, an offender can be jailed for up to three years, fined or both. On May 19, the DPP urged the court to fine Kho to the maximum of $10,000 fine without a jail sentence , saying: 'We accept that the accused's racist posts have not gained significant traction. We have also considered the accused's advanced age and his plea of guilt.' The defence lawyers Kenneth Au-Yong and Josiah Tan pleaded for their client to be given a fine of $6,000, saying that Kho is truly sorry for what he had done and is unlikely to repeat the offence. Before handing out the sentence, District Judge Eddy Tham said Kho, as a doctor, should have known better than to commit such an offence. The judge also noted that Kho had been fixated on what he read on the internet, and had accepted propaganda without critical examination. Shaffiq Alkhatib is The Straits Times' court correspondent, covering mainly criminal cases heard at the State Courts. Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.
