■ Hong Kong
Pub removes Hitler photos
A karaoke pub in Hong Kong which outraged the German and Israeli consul-generals by plastering its walls with pictures of Hitler and his Nazi troops said yesterday it will remove the offending photographs. The display inside Bar Pacific in the city's Hunghom district originally included a print of a terrified prisoner being executed over a pit full of dead bodies along with prints of Hitler delivering speeches and Nazi troops marching through Europe. The bar's owner at first agreed only to remove the photograph of the execution but a spokeswoman for the businessman said yesterday he had decided to take all of the pictures down because of the outcry.
■ New zealand
Farmers think tax stinks
A group of farmers driving about 60 trucks stopped traffic in the heart of the nation's biggest city Auckland yesterday to protest government plans to introduce a "flatulence tax" on sheep and cattle. The demonstration, called the "Fight Against Ridiculous Taxes" (FART), was one of a series being organized throughout the country to protest a government proposal that would require farmers to pay for research into global warming. The government claims that more than half of all New Zealand's greenhouse-gas emissions come from methane gas emitted from the country's 39 million sheep and 10 million cattle. Authorities expect the farmers to share the costs of researching ways to reduce the odorous animal gases. One protest rally in the South Island ended at a local hotel where a farmers' group posted signs reading, "For baked beans and pickled onions -- all welcome."
■ China
Glitch grants degrees
A police computer error has turned more than 100 people in a small village into holders of postgraduate degrees on their residency certificates, a news report said yesterday. The computer glitch in Weinan county, Shaanxi Province, even gave a degree to a 10-year-old boy, according to the South China Morning Post. Police have told villagers they must pay a fee if they want the certificates corrected.
■ Hong Kong
Man gets deadly revenge
A man disfigured by a stabbing in northern China when he was seven years old has hacked to death his attacker 18 years later, a news report said yesterday. The killer, from Changtu, Liaoning Province, was badly scarred in the 1985 attack and his injuries had been a source of acute embarrassment for him as he grew up, according to the South China Morning Post. When he could no longer endure the shame of his injuries, the man decided to seek revenge by tracking down his attacker and hacking him to death, the newspaper said.
■ Cambodia
Student chokes on fish
A 17-year-old Cambodian student choked to death after a small fish he had just caught allegedly jumped from a basket and into his mouth, police said on Tuesday. Lim Vanthon, who lived on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, had returned home after fishing in a nearby lake and was holding the basket, telling his parents about his catch, when the fish leaped into his mouth and wriggled down his throat, police said. Police said the student's father took him to two clinics for treatment before he died, but medical staff at both facilities were on lunch break.
■ Mexico
Clowns rob bus
Two teenagers dressed as clowns climbed aboard a microbus near the Mexican capital's airport, did a song-and-dance routine and then robbed everyone on board, authorities said on Monday. The incident occurred Sunday on a bus in the eastern borough of Venustiano Carranza. Two teens with their faces painted white and wearing goofy costumes hopped on the bus at a stoplight and put on a show. When none of the 20 passengers gave them spare change for their efforts, the pair pulled out knives and demanded money, said a Venustiano Carranza spokesman.
■ United States
Hemingway case closes
A judge refused to accept a competing will in a dispute over the US$7.5 million estate of Gloria Hemingway, the transgendered child of novelist Ernest Hemingway. Judge Arthur Rothenberg on Monday asked attorneys to draft legal briefs on the "cutting-edge issue" of same-sex marriages because of one-time wife Ida Hemingway's claim that they married again after Gloria Hemingway's gender-changing surgery. Children contesting Ida's claim to an inheritance say the claimed 1997 same-sex remarriage in Washington is irrelevant and not recognized in Florida or Washington. "The basic issue was whether she was a spouse or not," the judge said.
■ United States
Guard jailed for urinating
A former guard was ordered to scrub toilets while serving 15 days behind bars for urinating from a roof onto inmates playing basketball. Greene County Circuit Judge Don Burrell said on Monday he hoped the sentence would help Justin Hastings better understand what it was like to be dependent on those with power. Hastings, 23, also was given two years of probation and 150 hours of community service. He was convicted in June of four counts of assault. Four inmates said they were splashed by the urine as they played basketball in July 2001 at the Greene County Jail.
■ United States
`Jack the Snipper' nabbed
A male university student in the US was detained in the "Jack the Snipper" cases, in which a man crept into the apartments of female students and cut off their clothes, news reports said Monday. Gregory Ray, 21, a University of New Hampshire student, was first arrested July 30 when a woman said she awoke to find him peering at her through the window of her off-campus flat in Durham, New Hampshire. Police said they released him later that day but, upon further questioning, issued an arrest warrant for Ray in the "Snipper" cases and he was taken into custody Friday. The engineering student has yet to be charged in the home invasions, which began June 25 and put the small university town on edge.
■ Canada
Girls guilty of poisoning
Three teenage girls pleaded guilty Monday to poisoning a frozen drink that sickened two of them and several others. The three girls, one aged 15 and the other two aged 14, were accused of lacing the drink last April with powdered copper sulfate taken from a school science laboratory. Seven girls, including two of those charged, were hospitalized with symptoms including vomiting, shaking and headaches. Copper sulfate comes from refining the metal and is used as a fungicide. Local media reports say the poisoning may have been motivated by a fight over a boy.
■ Greece
Briton jailed for stabbing
A Briton charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of a British teenage tourist in Rhodes was jailed on Monday pending trial. The suspect, 20-year-old Peter-Mark Navarro, was jailed after a closed-door arraignment on the resort island. Seven other Britons charged with complicity in last week's stabbing of the 17-year-old in the resort town of Faliraki were released on bail pending trial. A trial date was not set. Navarro was charged with murder after he allegedly admitted killing the teenage British tourist by stabbing him in the neck with a broken bottle.
■ Spain
Police arrest sorry mugger
Police in Barcelona say they've arrested a well-dressed serial mugger who would target women, express remorse and ask them to spit at him. The 29-year-old man was arrested last week and is suspected of robbing 19 women in one month to finance a slot-machine addiction, the National Police in Spain's second largest city said. The suspect always used the same tactic: corner women in apartment building doorways or elevators and hold a box cutter to their throat, inspector Benjamin Blanco said. After taking money, the man would apologize, say he knew he was doing something bad and ask the women to spit at him, Blanco said. Some did, he added.
■ Ireland
Officials ban happy hour
It's official: There's no more "happy hour" in Ireland. Legislation designed to suppress heavy drinking in Irish pubs went into effect Monday. Among a range of new rules and penalties, it outlaws promotional discounts on alcoholic beverages that encourage excessive drinking. The Intoxicating Liquor Act -- drafted to address a steady rise in alcohol-fueled street violence -- also gives police new powers to impose fines on publicans and customers. For the first time, plainclothes police officers will we allowed to record whether bars are serving people who are obviously drunk, or refusing to serve them further drinks. Any bar deemed guilty of promoting drunkenness could be fined US$2,200 per offense.
■ Colombia
Guerrillas kill mayor
Suspected guerrilla fighters posing as police officers stabbed to death a mayor in southwestern Colombia, the nation's chief of police said on Monday. General Teodoro Campo said that the incident occurred early on Monday in Suaza, where four men wearing police uniforms arrived at the mayor's home. The Suaza mayor, Gentil Bahamon, let them in. He had received death threats from members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Colombia's largest guerrilla group, and hired bodyguards, who were absent when he was killed.
■ Russia
Hostages' families appeal
Lawyers for the families of people who died in last year's hostage-taking in a Moscow theater on Monday appealed to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of 27 plaintiffs seeking compensation from the Russian authorities. The families are each seeking 50,000 euros (US$56,000) in damages for a breach of their right to justice, rather than for moral damage arising from the crisis itself. The three-day ordeal left 129 hostages dead, out of a total of around 800 -- most of them poisoned by a deadly gas pumped into the theater to subdue the hostage-takers before a pre-dawn raid on Oct. 26.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese