■ ChinaLawyer sues party official
An Icelandic lawyer has filed a lawsuit against visiting Chinese official Luo Gan, accusing the top Communist Party leader of torture and genocide in the crackdown on Falun Gong, the group said yesterday. Ragnar Adalsteinsson, a renowned Icelandic human-rights lawyer, filed the action Thursday with the State Criminal Prosecutor in Iceland, Bogi Nilsson. Luo has orchestrated the four-year campaign against the spiritual group as head of the party's Politics and Law Commission, China's top police and judicial organ, and is in Iceland on a two-day visit as part of an ongoing four-nation tour of Europe.
■ South Korea
Official beaten up
A South Korean official was beaten and seriously injured by opponents of a government plan to build a nuclear waste dump in their province, police said yesterday. Kim Jong-gyu, chief administrator of Buan County in the southwestern province of North Jeolla, was being treated in hospital for a broken nose, two fractured costal bones and a punctured lung, police said. Kim was mobbed by some of the 500 local residents who heard him deliver a speech defending his decision to host the waste dump in return for economic gains for the county. Some 30 policemen dragged him from the angry protesters who also overturned Kim's car and set it on fire.
■ Japan
Centenarians on the increase
The number of Japanese aged at least 100 rose to 20,561 this year, a new record in the world's longest-living nation, the government said yesterday. The figure was up by 2,627 from last year and includes all Japanese who will have celebrated their 100th birthday by the end of September, the Health Ministry said in an annual study released ahead of a national holiday next week honoring the country's elderly.
■ AUstralia
Rain brings relief
Widespread rainfall over the last two months snapped a two-year drought plaguing much of Australia's grain growing regions and should result in a bumper harvest, the government said yesterday. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics said if rainfall continues and no serious frost damage is suffered, total winter crop production would increase to 37.1 million tonnes this season, some 21.6 million tonnes above last season's drought-ravaged crop.
■ Cambodia
Plug pulled on daredevil TV
It may be standard fare in America, but strait-laced Cambodia has decided it cannot stomach any more Fear Factor-style television. Brave, Brave or not, the war-scarred Southeast Asian nation's first bite at daredevil programming, has been ordered off the air after just four screenings for being too racy. "I am writing a letter to the TV station to tell them to avoid such a crazy game in the future," said Information Minister Lu Laysreng. "It is a dirty game. It might be OK in America, but it is not proper for Cambodian culture," he said. "Children are always watching TV and they sometimes copy what they see." Like hit US gameshow Fear Factor, the program has caused a stir among traditionally staid Cambodians who have been able to tune in to villagers crawling through swamps, eating bowls of live crickets or plunging their arm into a box of leeches -- all in pursuit of a US$15 prize.
■ NigeriaBus crash kills over 100
Three buses and a truck collided Monday in central Nigeria, killing more than 100 people in the impact and the fiery explosion that followed, authorities said. State television showed charred remains of some victims of the accident, which happened shortly after midnight Sunday about 100km outside the capital, Abuja. Circumstances of the accident were unclear. Authorities said the buses all had been carrying passengers on long-distance journeys, and said one was carrying 70 passengers. Samuel Adetoye, police commissioner of Kogi state, where the accident occurred, asked families who had relatives traveling in the area to visit hospital morgues to try to identify the dead.
RSS