■China
Democracy activist indicted
A pro-democracy activist jailed in China for more than a year was indicted by the Chinese government Thursday on charges of espionage and entering the country illegally, according to his wife and their lawyer. Yang Jianli could go to trial as early as July 28. The trial will be closed because it involves"`state secrets" according to information provided to Yang's wife Christina Fu. The espionage charges involve events that reportedly occurred more than 10 years ago, Fu said. "As we all know, Jianli is not a spy," Fu said from her Boston home Thursday. "All he wanted to do was to help his countryman, his poor friends and relatives in China." A Chinese citizen with permanent US residency, Yang is founder of the Boston-based Foundation for China in the 21st Century.
■ China
Card game ends in blindness
A gambling addict lost the sight in his left eye after playing a card game that lasted three days and three nights, a news report said yesterday. The businessman from Shanghai was found to have a tear in his retina after going blind in one after the non-stop three-day session, the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily reported. As well as losing heavily at cards, the gambler had to pay another 20,000 yuan (US$2,400) for two operations which only partially restored his sight, the newspaper said.
■ India
Man, snake die after kissing
A drunk man who wrapped a snake around his neck and repeatedly kissed it, died shortly afterward. But the snake died first, it was reported yesterday. The incident took place in the Bhadrak district of the eastern state of Orissa, the Asian Age newspaper reported. Police said Kalindi Behera, 50, caught the snake in a field and told children in his village he was Shiva -- the Hindu god of destruction depicted with a snake around his neck. An inebriated Behera proceeded to dance around the field, kissing the snake several times. The snake bit him on the neck and chest and then died. Next Behera collapsed unconscious. He died later in the district hospital.
■ China
Iraqi envoy refuses to leave
Iraq's ambassador to China has armed himself with pistols and locked other diplomats out of the main Iraqi embassy building in Beijing, refusing orders to return to Baghdad, an Iraqi diplomat said yesterday. Mowaffaq Alani was ordered June 6 to return to Iraq, said Talal Al-Khudairi, who said he was asked to take over as representative to China by the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. Alani "took over the embassy by force, using pistols," Al-Khudairi said. He said Alani was barring the other diplomats from the main building and had demanded that three diplomats living in the residential building leave, threatening to shoot them if they refuse. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said China wanted the Iraqis to handle the dispute themselves.
■ Pakistan
Guantanamo inmates return
Eleven men freed from American custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been returned to Pakistan, officials said. The US military said they were among about 30 detainees released in recent days. Pakistani authorities plan to question the 11 freed prisoners for a few days before allowing them to return to their homes, Javed Iqbal Cheema, a senior Interior Ministry official, said Thursday. The men were not identified.
■Canada
Acclaimed novelist dies
Carol Shields, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who wrote with wit and wonder about love, family and finding one's place in modern times, has died after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 68. Shields died Wednesday night in Victoria, British Columbia, of complications from breast cancer diagnosed almost five years ago, according to her publisher, Random House. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998, she spoke openly about her illness and continued writing. Shields was a finalist for Britain's most prestigious literary award, the Booker Prize, last year for Unless.
■ United Kingdom
Fake news investigated
Sky News has suspended two journalists and opened an investigation into a charge that they faked a report claiming to show a missile being launched from a submarine during the Iraq war, the satellite network said. The Guardian newspaper on Thursday quoted a not-yet-aired episode of the BBC. documentary Fighting the War as showing that a Sky team reported a missile-launch exercise from a docked Royal Navy submarine as if it were a launch from a vessel in action. The BBC declined to immediately confirm the content of its documentary or comment on The Guardian's report.
■ France
Fires rage in Cote d'Azur
Two fires have destroyed more than 6,000 hectares of forest trees and brush in southeastern France, officials said yesterday. Local officials said about 3,000 campers and vacationers in the area were safety evacuated from the flames. In the town of Var in the Cote d'Azur region, about 1,300 firefighters were trying to control the blazes, the worst forest fires in Cote d'Azur in ten years. The flames were being fuelled by dry conditions over the last few weeks and strong winds. The fires were threatening the coastal vacation area of Frejus yesterday morning.
■ United States
Free-speech court victory
In a victory for free-speech advocates, an appeals court on Thursday threw out the guilty plea of a man imprisoned for writing fictitious stories in which he fantasized about molesting and torturing children. Lawyers specializing in the First Amendment believe Brian Dalton, of Columbus, Ohio, was the first person in the US successfully prosecuted for child pornography that involved writings, not images. The stories, which prosecutors say were never acted on, were about three children -- ages 10 and 11 -- being caged in a basement, molested and tortured. The journal was so disturbing that grand jurors asked a detective to stop reading after about two pages.
■ United States
Stress has genetic link
In the first study to show a direct genetic link between emotional stress and depression, researchers found that people with a certain type of brain chemistry gene were more vulnerable to deep depression after traumatic events. The study, appearing this week in the journal Science, focused on two forms of a gene called 5-HTT which helps regulate serotonin, a brain chemical. Researchers found that adults who carried a short form of this gene were more prone to slip into depression after experiencing serious life events.
Agencies
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the