■ China
Lions kill teen reveler
An 18-year old student celebrating the end of his school exams was attacked and killed by three lions in a zoological park in northeastern Heilongjiang Province, state press said yesterday. The student was one of 10 young men who climbed over the 2m fence surrounding the lion compound at the Northern Forestry Zoological Park near the provincial capital of Harbin on Tuesday, the Beijing News said. The students, who had been drinking following their exams, illegally entered the zoo and climbed over the fence despite signs warning of the danger, the report said.
■ Malaysia
Man crashes into school
A man suffering from a mental illness rammed his car into a school, injuring 17 children, including three who were dragged under the vehicle, reports said yesterday. Pupils at the primary school in northern Penang state had assembled for a prize-giving rehearsal on Tuesday when the 32-year-old driver sped through the gates into the compound. Three nine-year-olds became trapped under the car and were dragged for a few meters before it became wedged in a drain. The driver, who was handed over to police, last week tried to ram pupils outside another primary school with a motorcycle, the New Straits Times said.
■ China
Air force to buy new plane
China's air force is preparing to introduce a new domestically made jet trainer to teach pilots to fly state-of-the-art warplanes, state media reported yesterday, underscoring the Chinese military's rapid modernization. The People's Liberation Army Air Force plans to buy the JL-9 "Mountain Eagle" in 2006-2010, the Web site of the Communist Party newspaper People's Daily reported. The announcement comes amid growing US alarm at China's heavy spending on modernizing its arsenal.
■ Malaysia
Pirates face whipping
Ten Indonesian pirates, caught after a botched attempt to hijack an oil tanker off northern Malaysia, have pleaded guilty to armed robbery and face up to 20 years in jail and whipping, officials said yesterday. The men, ages 23-57, were charged with hijacking the Malaysian-registered Neptune Delima in the Straits of Malacca on June 14. Police and naval forces laid siege to the ship and the pirates, armed with machetes, surrendered after 12 hours.
■ China
Uighur author arrested
A Chinese Muslim author has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after authorities deemed one of his stories subversive, a US-based broadcaster reported yesterday. Nurmuhemmet Yasin, a member of the Uighur ethnic group, was arrested last November and sentenced after a closed trial in February, Radio Free Asia reported. It said he was sent May 19 to the No. 1 Prison in Urumqi, capital of the Muslim Xinjiang region. A man who answered the telephone at the prison's general office said it was "impossible to confirm the names of prisoners." The man then hung up when asked for his name. Yasin's arrest followed the publication last year of his Uighur-language short story Wild Pigeon in a literary journal, Radio Free Asia said. It said the story is about a bird trapped by humans that commits suicide in captivity -- apparently seen by authorities as an allegory for Uighurs under Chinese rule.
■ United States
Zsa Zsa Gabor sues child
Colorful Hollywood personality Zsa Zsa Gabor has sued her daughter for allegedly stealing US$2 million and using it to buy a mansion, a court heard on Tuesday. Gabor, 87, and her ninth husband, Prince Frederic Von Anhalt, are suing Francesca Hilton, Gabor's daughter by hotel tycoon Conrad Hilton. Gabor accused Hilton of conspiring with others to fraudulently take out a US$3.75 million loan on her home and of then taking US$2 million from it to buy herself a house. But Judge Jacqueline Connor, sitting in the Los Angeles area of Santa Monica, refused to freeze Hilton's new property, saying there was no evidence to suggest Hilton planned to sell or encumber it.
■ United States
Addict feared `hemadromes'
A known drug addict accused of causing a deadly car crash claims he was driving like a maniac because he was being pursued by man-eating subterranean beings, a California prosecutor said on Tuesday. Scott Krause, whose trial got underway on Monday in Nevada City, California, is accused of vehicular murder after slamming an allegedly carjacked vehicle into a parcel delivery van, killing its driver. Krause has a long history of drug abuse and was under the influence of the delusion-inducing drug crystal meth at the time. "He claims he was driving fast because he was being chased by entities called `hemadromes,' subterranean beings that he thought had killed his girlfriend and were out to eat him and his children," district attorney Mike Ferguson said.
■ Russia
Arms boss beaten up
Armed men beat up and threatened to kill the head of Russian aerospace giant Sukhoi yesterday after breaking into his house and stripping it of money and jewelry, police said. The four unidentified men broke into Mikhail Pogosyan's villa in a heavily guarded compound near Moscow through an open window just after midnight, tied up his wife and 19-year-old son with electric cables, and beat him up. "They stole money, gold jewelry and a collection of coins," a Moscow police spokesman said. State-owned Sukhoi -- Russia's biggest warplane manufacturer and the country's No.1 arms exporter -- declined to comment. A source close to Pogosyan said that "Mikhail Aslanovich is alive and well."
■ Russia
Ex-detainee sues US
A Russian national released last year from the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has sued the US government in a civil court over the humiliations he claims he suffered, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported, citing the ex-detainee. "It's not a question of compensation. I want the United States to publicly recognize my innocence," Airat Vakhitov, formerly an imam in the Russian republic of Tatarstan, said. Vakhitov, one of seven Russian nationals released from Guantanamo in February last year, said he had already given testimony to a US civil court examining his complaint. He said that US soldiers at Guantanamo had tried to provoke detainees by insulting the Koran.
■ South Africa
Zuma faces court
Sacked former South African deputy president Jacob Zuma, facing two charges of corruption, appeared in court yesterday in a case that has hobbled his chances of becoming president in 2009. Prosecutors informed Zuma of the charges he would face and the Durban Magistrate's Court released him on 1,000 rand (US$150) bail.
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
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