■ Camodia
Dutch pedophile sentenced
The appeals court sentenced a 49-year-old Dutchman to 10 years in jail yesterday for having sex with shoe-shine street children aged between 12 and 15 years old. Rene Paul Martin Aubel was charged with debauchery after being arrested in a Phnom Penh hotel in the company of several young boys in April last year. Several of the children testified against Aubel at yesterday's hearing, saying he paid US$10 to have sex with them. The court also ordered him to pay 1 million riel (or US$256) to each of his six victims.
■ China
Blogger pleads innocent
Dissident writer Zhang Lin (張林) pleaded innocent to charges of subversion yesterday, saying his Internet postings should be protected by his right to freedom of speech. One article cited as evidence of subversive writing included the lyrics to a Chinese punk song, which said: "The Yellow River should run dry, this society should collapse, this system should be destroyed, this race should become extinct, this country should perish."
■ Hong Kong
Naming rights debated
The richest man in the territory has defended the renaming of a local medical school after himself following a 1 billion Hong Kong dollar (US$128 million) donation -- a move that prompted criticism that school officials put naming rights up for sale. Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠) gave the money in early May to the University of Hong Kong, which decided weeks later to rename its medical school HKU Li Ka-shing Faculty of Medicine. The University of Hong Kong has said the renaming was an appropriate gesture given the size of Li's donation.
■ Afghanistan
Plot to kill US envoy foiled
Authorities were yesterday investigating an alleged bid to assassinate the US envoy to Afghanistan, who left the country for a new job in Iraq. Officials said three Pakistanis had confessed to planning to kill him. Afghan intelligence officials said on Monday that the Pakistanis had told them they had planned to kill ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad while he was visiting eastern Laghman province at the weekend. The Pakistanis, armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, were arrested on Sunday as Khalilzad toured Laghman to launch reconstruction efforts.
■ China
Chemical plant explodes
Thousands of detonators exploded at a chemicals plant, destroying a row of buildings and killing seven people, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The accident happened in Meishan, Sichuan Province, on Monday, the agency said, adding that eight people were injured and two missing. "Preliminary investigations show the accident was caused by an operation error when workers were fixing detonators," Xinhua said, quoting police. "There were about 13,000 detonators [at the plant] when the accident took place," it said.
■ China
Medicine sickens children
Herbal medicine prescribed to elementary-school students in Yunnan Province to ward off chickenpox killed one and made 151 sick, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The accident happened in Kunming, the capital, when more than 200 children took a homemade herbal concoction, Xinhua said. About 150 children suffered diarrhea, nausea and vomiting after taking the medicine, a mixture of some 15 types of traditional herbs, it said.
■ United Kingdom
Pathologist blacklisted
A Dutch pathologist who took organs from hundreds of dead children at a British hospital without their parents' permission was struck off Britain's medical register. The General Medical Council banned Dick van Velzen, of Oegstgeest, Netherlands, from practicing in Britain, after finding him guilty of serious professional misconduct. In 1999,hundreds of hearts, brains, lungs and other body parts that had been retained by van Velzen were discovered stored in containers. He had removed organs from children who died between 1989 and 1995 at Alder Hey Hospital.
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