■ China
Civil unrest on the rise
More than 3 million people were engaged in some 58,500 incidents of social unrest in China last year, with disputes on the rise as the economy steams ahead and market forces are unleashed, a top periodical reported yesterday. The rise in civil disputes and mass protests are linked to the nation's burgeoning private economy, which remains largely unregulated and difficult to control, the state-run Outlook Weekly said in its current edition. It is also because of the transformation and reform of state-owned industries. Social dissatisfaction was also leading to an alarming rise in juvenile delinquency, while a huge "floating population" of rural workers accounted for up to 80 percent of urban crime, it added.
■ Hong Kong
Cop killer gets 18 months
A motorist who killed a Hong Kong police motorcyclist while driving drunk four times over the legal limit has been jailed for two-and-a-half years, a news report said yesterday. Wu Wing-cho, 29, rammed a police motorcyclist and sent the 28-year-old constable 7.7m over a flyover to his death in the accident in March. Wu was so drunk he was unable to walk or speak clearly when police arrested him at the scene, Hong Kong's District Court heard. In the heaviest sentence passed for an offence of its kind in Hong Kong, Wu was jailed for 32 months after admitting causing death by dangerous driving and drink driving.
■ China
TV station under pressure
The only independent Chinese-language television station broadcasting to China has accused Beijing of waging a campaign to knock it off the air. "We're afraid that the broadcast will be cut off due to Beijing's pressure," said Carrie Hung, a spokeswoman for New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV), set up by the Falun Gong movement, which has been banned as an "evil cult" by China since 1999. The conflict between the Chinese government and NTDTV, which began broadcasting to China in April on Eutelsat's W5 satellite, has been followed with interest by media freedom groups, such as Reporters Sans Frontieres.
■ Australia
Bonus begets unwanted kids
Women are getting pregnant not because they want a baby but to get hold of the cash bonus the government has promised, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) said yesterday. Under a program intended to help raise the birth rate there is a bounty of A$3,000 (US$2,100) for every child born from the start of the financial year on July 1. The lump-sum payment, to rise to A$5,000 (US$3,500) in 2008, is tax free and goes to married and unmarried, rich and poor alike. Queensland AMA president David Molloy said the baby bonus was bad social policy because it was sparking pregnancies that were not genuinely wanted.
■ China
Serial killer admits guilt
A man has confessed to strangling 18 young women in China after raping them and stealing their money to get back at society after being cheated on by a girlfriend, reports and police said yesterday. The man, in his 30s, was arrested on May 2 for robbery and rape in Hunan Province and subsequently confessed to the murders, the Nanguoginbao daily newspaper said. According to the report, he used a neck tie or wire to strangle his victims after raping them. Police told reporters there could be more than 18 victims. China has been rocked by series of mass murders in the past year, including one man who killed around 67 people.
■ Mexico
Aromatherapy for criminals
Inmates at a jail in Ciudad Juarez on the US border, where more than 300 women have been murdered over the past decade, are enjoying aromatherapy and piped classical music as part of a novel rehabilitation program. This month the prison authorities began burning scented oils and playing soft music for a group of 25 "violent and disturbed" inmates. "We play them Mozart and give them occupational, play and aroma therapies to relax them for evaluation," prison governor Arturo Herrera said. The group receiving the special treatment includes murderers and rapists serving up to 40-year sentences.
■ United States
Friendly firer to stand trial
A military appeals court
has cleared the way for trial
in the case of an Air Force fighter pilot charged
over accidentally bombing Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan in 2002, killing four. The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces lifted a stay on Monday in the case of Major Harry Schmidt, who is charged with dereliction of duty in the April, 2002, bombing near Kandahar. Schmidt was charged for dropping a laser-guided, 225kg bomb from his fighter jet, killing four Canadians and wounding eight. Schmidt later said he released the bomb because he mistook the Canadian troops' gunfire for an attack from Taliban soldiers.
■ Norway
Popcorn mimics slick
A major exercise focusing on cleaning up ocean oil spills is bound to be popular with the wildlife of a Norwegian fjord. Instead of creating a mess of sticky crude, the experts
are dumping popcorn. When popcorn absorbs water it forms an emulsion that is very similar to spilled oil, and mimics the effect of ocean currents on oil. The team plans to dump 5 cubic meters of popcorn, enough to create a roughly 100m by 200m slick, just off Norway's west coast. Then about 300 people in more than 30 boats, plus observation aircraft, will respond as if it were a real oil spill from one of the many offshore oil platforms that make Norway the world's third largest oil exporter.
■ Zimbabwe
Land grab bodes ill
The government announced on Tuesday that it intends to nationalize all farmland, a step which its critics fear
will hasten the collapse of agriculture when millions
of people depend on food
aid. The land reform and resettlement minister, John Nkomo, told the Herald newspaper: "All land shall be state land and there will be no such thing called private land." He added: "The government has stepped up efforts to acquire more land with the sole objective of nationalizing all productive farmland, from crop fields
to conservancies, in the country." Although Mugabe says seized land is intended for poor black Zimbabweans, most of the best farms have been grabbed by Cabinet ministers, army officers
and others connected to his party, Zanu-PF.
■ United Kingdom
Thief has change of heart
A thief took more than
?100,000 (US$180,000)
from an automatic teller
machine -- then apparently
returned most of the cash a
week later. Police said on
Tuesday that the money
was taken from the machine
inside Barclays Bank in Barkingside High Street, east London, on the night
of May 21. On May 28, staff discovered a large garbage bag filled with bank
notes inside the bank,
a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said.
■ United States
Thousands mourn Reagan
Waiting good-naturedly for as much as half a day in traffic jams and a parking lot, tens of thousands of people filed past Ronald Reagan's flag-draped casket in an outpouring that forced organizers to extend the viewing period by four hours. More than 106,000 mourners had passed by the coffin after viewing began at noon on Monday, library officials said. The nation's 40th president died on Saturday at age 93. The flow of mourners was interrupted briefly when Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry arrived. Standing before the casket, he made the sign of the cross, placed his hand over his heart, then left.
■ Gabon
Plane crashes in shallows
A passenger plane carrying at least 29 people plunged into shallow waters just off the coast of Gabon on Tuesday killing many of those on board, officials from the aircraft's operator said. A French army helicopter helped rescue 10 people, who were taken to hospital in the central African country's capital Libreville. Divers tried to reach others trapped inside the Gabon Express plane, just hundreds of metres from the shore. Local fishermen were also helping. The plane was travelling from Libreville to Franceville in the southeast of the former French colony, when it developed engine trouble soon after taking off.
■ United States
Enron wife to federal prison
The wife of former Enron Corp finance chief Andrew Fastow must report to a federal prison in downtown Houston rather than the minimum-security prison camp where she wanted to serve her yearlong sentence for helping her husband hide ill-gotten income. US District Judge David Hittner has ordered Lea Fastow to surrender at the prison on Saturday. She pleaded guilty on May 6 to a misdemeanor tax crime and Hittner sentenced her to the maximum of one year in prison. Last month Hittner rejected her request that he recommend the Federal Bureau of Prisons place her at a minimum-security prison camp for women in Bryan, northwest of Houston.
■ United Kingdom
`New' disease assessed
British health watchdogs were on Tuesday night asked to speed up an official assessment of the risk to humans from a possible new cattle disease as it emerged that 21 cows have been investigated for unexplained viral conditions in the last 10 years. UK government officials appealed for "a sense of proportion" about the investigations which were sparked by vets' unease about the most recent case, in Cumbria, northern England, at the end of last year, in which a young cow fell ill from a disease which damaged white brain matter and led to paralysis and death. An alert will be published this week in the Veterinary Record so that vets working for farmers can look out for similar cases.
■ Bosnia
Compensation after 28 years
A compensation claim filed 28 years ago has brought civil servants in a southern Bosnian town out in a cold sweat after it emerged the pay-out could clear out the town's coffers. The Bileca town council has appealed a decision by a court to award Bosiljka Petkovic US$580,000 after the former communist authorities closed his bar in 1976 because patrons were singing Serb nationalist songs prohibited under the law. Petkovic lodged a complaint at the time but the case was only decided at the beginning of this year -- in his favor. The court's decision came into force this month.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in