■ Japan
LDP No.2 wants to resign
The popular number two official in Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) told Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday that he intends to resign, a move that could deal a blow to the administration. After meeting Koizumi, 49-year-old Shinzo Abe said he would quit as secretary-general of the LDP to take responsibility for its setback in elections in July. Immediately after the July 11 upper-house elections, in which the LDP won 49 of the 121 seats contested, a net loss of one seat, Abe said he would step down from his party post to take responsibility for the loss. Abe, the grandson of former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi and son of former LDP secretary-general Shintaro Abe, has proved popular with the public because of his tough line on North Korea over its abduction of Japanese citizens.
■ Thailand
Mother kills son over sports
A man whose family had warned him that playing too much sport was detrimental to his life found out how true that was when his angry mother found him away from home once too often and beat him to death with his own tennis racket, police said yesterday. On Saturday evening, when the mother, Ka Bopha, 47, went to look for her active son and found him at the local snooker hall, she become enraged and attacked him on the spot, beating him severely on the head with his tennis racket. He died 15 hours later in hospital.
■ China
Ten hurt in studio shooting
At least 10 people were injured, four seriously, in a shooting incident at a movie studio complex on the outskirts of Beijing, state media reported yesterday. The drama happened Saturday inside a semi-constructed building at the Beiputuo Movie and TV Training Base, about 20km south of the Chinese capital, the Beijing Times cited police as saying. It was not clear whether a lone gunman carried out the attack or more than one person was involved. Police and the movie complex refused to comment yesterday and the motivation was not known.
■ India
Man cuts off wife's tongue
An Indian man was arrested for chopping off his nagging wife's tongue after a quarrel, it was reported yesterday. Police said Enadul Mullick, 40, also suspected his wife Halima, 30, of having an affair. The couple fought frequently and he allegedly sliced her tongue with a betel nut cracker. "During interrogation he confessed to chopping off his wife's tongue. He told police his wife frequently fought with him for not earning enough to support her, her mother, their eight-year-old daughter and five-year-old son. Mullick claimed he had no peace of mind as his wife nagged him about trivial issues, the report said.
■ China
Flying boiler kills pedestrian
A pedestrian was killed and three other people injured after an explosion launched a bathhouse boiler over a six-storey building in northern China's Baotou city, state media reported yesterday. The 2m long steam boiler flew over the building and landed on a pedestrian crossing, crushing to death an unidentified 63-year-old victim, the official Xinhua news agency said. A second pedestrian narrowly escaped death when he saw the boiler flying towards him and tried to jump out of its path, but he still suffered leg injuries. Two workers at a restaurant next to the bathhouse were also injured when a wall collapsed onto them following the explosion.
■ Sudan
Sudan minister `optimistic'
Sudan's foreign minister said yesterday he was optimistic about striking a peace deal within three months to end atrocities in Darfur and again rejected US charges of genocide in the region. Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, on a visit to South Korea, said his government and rebel groups would "very soon" resume the African Union-brokered peace talks. "Hopefully, before the end of this year, we will sign a final peace agreement," he told a news conference in Seoul. "Hopefully, by next year the whole of Sudan will be in peace." In the Nigerian capital of Abuja on Sunday, rebel negotiators also said they remained hopeful about peace talks as AU special envoy General Abdusalami Abubakar of Nigeria was helping bridge the gap.
■ United States
Mauna Loa ready to erupt?
Earthquakes have been rumbling more frequently deep beneath Mauna Loa, suggesting that the world's largest volcano is getting ready to erupt for the first time in 20 years, scientists said. "We don't believe an eruption is right around the corner, but every day that goes by is one day closer to that event," said Paul Okubo, a seismologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on the Big Island. Mauna Loa erupted for three weeks in 1984, sending a 26km lava flow toward Hilo. Since then, the US Geological Survey estimates that more than US$2.3 billion has been invested in new construction along Mauna Loa's slopes. Since July, more than 350 earthquakes have been recorded far beneath the 4,103m high Mauna Loa, said Don Swanson, scientist-in-charge at the observatory.
■ China
Dyslexias may differ
Reading difficulties can be traced to different parts of the brain in Chinese and Western children, a team of US scientists say. In China, dyslexia appears to have a different physical origin, because the script, also used in Japan, is symbol rather than alphabet-based. The discovery casts doubt on the widespread assumption that dyslexia has a universal cause. Instead, researchers believe it is heavily influenced by culture. The findings also support the idea that therapy strategies for treating dyslexia can "tune" the brain. This fits in with the theory that the brain can to some extent be physically shaped by cultural differences. A team of scientists led by Li Hai-tan, from the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, scanned the brains of 16 dyslexic Chinese children as they performed various language-based tasks.
■ Australia
Howard, Latham not idols
There were two popularity contests on Australian television over the weekend -- one between a bunch of pop star wannabes and the other between two men vying for the nation's top job. And the winner was? Australian Idol, the local spinoff of the wildly popular US reality show, easily beat the only televised debate in Australia's election campaign on Sunday night. The would-be pop celebrities snared 1.98 million viewers in this nation of 20 million according to ratings released yesterday. The prospective premiers' showdown, between current Prime Minister John Howard and his Labor Party rival at the Oct. 9 elections, Mark Latham, got 1.47 million. "I checked with my kids at home whether they were watching the debate or Australian Idol and Idol was winning hands down," Costello told a radio station.
■ Russia
Chechen site claims attacks
A Web site linked to Chechen rebels posted a claim of responsibility for the downing of a Russian military helicopter in Chechnya. The two crew members were killed yesterday when the Mi-24 helicopter went down near the village of Alkhan-Kala, southwest of the Chechen capital, Grozny. The helicopter had flown out of the Russian military headquarters in Khankala, outside Grozny, on a reconnaissance mission, the Interfax news agency reported. The Kavkaz Center Web site said in a statement attributed to a rebel official identified as Madzhilsul Shura that fighters had shot down the helicopter using a Russian-made, shoulder-fired Igla (Needle) missile.
■ Cayman Islands
Cuba in Ivan's path
Hurricane Ivan, one of the fiercest Atlantic storms recorded, headed toward Cuba yesterday after pummeling the Cayman Islands, Jamaica and Grenada on a track that eventually will bring it to the US coast. A monster storm with sustained winds near 260kph that has killed at least 47 people, Ivan sent sea water surging over the low-lying Caymans, a British territory and wealthy offshore finance center of 45,000 people. Forecasters said the rare and deadly Category 5 hurricane was expected to pass near or over extreme western Cuba yesterday evening.
■ Italy
650 illegal migrants stopped
Rome Sunday summoned the Libyan ambassador for talks after Italian coastguards apprehended 650 clandestine migrants on two boats near the island of Lampedusa, south of Sicily, amid mounting tension over illegal immigration. A ship carrying 480 migrants was intercepted 30 nautical miles off the tiny island, the largest single boatload ever apprehended, overnight Saturday, and a second boat with 170 persons aboard was taken into custody soon afterwards, police said. Investigators said the first ship, a 30m fishing vessel, had clearly sailed from Libya. The latest arrivals brought to more than 1,000 the number of clandestine immigrants intercepted off Lampedusa over the previous week.
■ United States
Convict sues device maker
A lawsuit filed by a two-time drunken driving convict claims a dashboard device intended to stop people from driving while intoxicated can actually be a safety hazard. Jason Reali, 29, said he passed out and crashed his car after blowing into an ignition interlock, a small machine that measures alcohol on the breath and won't allow a car to start if the driver has been drinking. Forty-five states have laws requiring some drunken driving offenders to install the devices, which also require a series of sober breath samples to continue driving. A heavy smoker, Reali said he blew so hard during one test while he was driving that he fell unconscious and crashed into a tree.
■ United States
Brothel airlifted to new home
The last piece of a risque chapter of Nevada history -- the Mustang Ranch brothel -- was airlifted to a new home. Unlike other buildings from the state's first legal bordello, the 19m-wide parlor where the working girls lined up for customers was too big to be moved by truck to its new location at the Wild Horse Adult Resort & Spa. About a dozen girls cheered and champagne flowed yesterday as a double-rotored helicopter gently lowered the skeleton of the parlor into place and workers secured it to a concrete pad.
‘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