■ China
Reservoir collapses, kills 15
A dam on a rain-swollen reservoir collapsed in China's southwest, inundating dozens of houses and killing at least 15 villagers on Thursday evening in Xiaocaoba, a town in Yunnan province. The reservoir's retaining wall collapsed after days of torrential rain. The latest fatalities raised the nationwide death toll from torrential downpours to at least 792 since China's summer rainy season began on June 1. Floods in China kill hundreds each year during the three-month rainy season, as rivers overflow and water rushes down mountains denuded of trees.
■ China
Villagers given land back
Villagers who were attacked for protesting the seizure of their fields for a power plant have been given their land back. Six people were killed and 48 injured last month when as many as 300 unidentified men wielding guns, clubs and knives stormed the villagers' shantytown in an effort to get them off the site. The violence erupted over a planned power station in Shengyou, a village in Hebei. Villagers had disputed the compensation offered by local officials for their land and occupied the site. Some said they hadn't even agreed to the sale of their land. Officials in Hebei have decided to give them their land back, citing the shortage of land compared to the village's population, China Daily newspaper said. It said the power plant would find a new site to dump its coal cinders.
■ South Korea
Phone line set up with North
A direct private phone line was installed yesterday between the capitals of North and South Korea for the first time since the end of the Korean War. The phone and fax line between Seoul and Pyongyang will provide direct communications for technicians working to set up video-conference reunions of relatives separated by the heavily fortified border scheduled next month, Seoul-based telecommunications company KT said. Although governments of the two Koreas have installed temporary phone lines in the past, this is the first-ever private connection. Earlier this week, fiber-optic cable lines were also installed across the world's last Cold War frontier to handle the video transmissions for reunions.
■ Australia
Rau seeks compensation
A permanent resident wrongly kept in jail and immigration detention for almost a year will seek A$7 million (US$5.3 million) in compensation. Cornelia Rau, who has a history of mental illness, told yesterday's Australian newspaper that she had been "treated like a criminal" during 10 months in jail and in detention. Rau's sister, Christine, has pushed for the case to be investigated and called for mental health and immigration reform.
■ Italy
PM stars in smear book
The latest book about Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is timed to coincide with the start of an election campaign, but it's not the glossy success story that he sent to households across the country five years ago. Instead, it's a collection of insults thrown at the Italian leader since that time. Berlusconi I Hate You is published by a part of Berlusconi's media empire. Insults include "clown," "bandit," "Premier Pinocchio," "pathetic improviser," "extremist," "megalomaniac," a man who speaks like a "drunken hooligan" and who behaves "like a Taliban." An anti-corruption magistrate turned politician also once said: "Berlusconi is like AIDS: If you know him, you avoid him."
■ United States
Do not disturb, for a buck
The largest US direct-marketing group set up a registry on Thursday to remove dead people from its telemarketing, e-mail and direct mail lists -- for US$1. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA), which has more than 5,200 members in the US and 44 other countries, said its Deceased Do-Not-Contact list was designed to help families dealing with the loss of a loved one. The organization said the US$1 fee was for credit-card verification.
■ Russia
Bribery problem grows
More than US$300 billion will be paid in bribes in Russia this year, almost 10 times as much as in 2001, according to a survey. The average bribe paid to corrupt bureaucrats is 13 times what it was four years ago, according to research by the Indem think tank. The change was put down to an increasingly influential bureaucracy targeting rich citizens. Bribes are most commonly paid to avoid conscription into the army, secure a place in a school or university, buy up a judge or get better medical treatment. The survey gives ammunition to critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin's administration who argue that the Kremlin has cemented the role of an all-powerful bureaucracy.
■ Yemen
More clashes kill 11
Eleven people were killed and scores injured on Thursday in a second day of clashes between Yemeni security forces and rioters protesting fuel price increases. In the capital Sanaa, tanks and armored vehicles took up positions around the presidential palace, government ministries and oil sector offices. It was the first time tanks had been seen in Sanaa since the rioting broke out. Analysts said the riots posed a challenge to the government but were unlikely to shake the grip of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
■ Haiti
Priest `arrested' for murder
A Roman Catholic priest who has emerged as a leader of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's party was arrested for the murder of a prominent journalist on Thursday, hours after demonstrators at the man's funeral called for his arrest, his lawyer said. The Reverend Gerard Jean-Juste, who was mobbed and punched by angry demonstrators at the funeral for Jacques Roche before he was taken away by police, was questioned for several hours before his arrest, the lawyer said. But the head of Haiti's police said Jean-Juste had only been questioned and detained and that it would be up to prosecutors to decide whether the priest should face criminal charges.
■ United States
Drunk pilots sent to jail
A US judge on Thursday handed prison sentences to two US pilots convicted of trying to fly a jet carrying 124 passengers while drunk. Thomas Cloyd and Christopher Hughes, who worked for the US carrier America West, were arrested on July 1, 2002, when they tried to board a flight and take off for Phoenix, Arizona, from Miami international airport. Airport staff smelled alcohol and noticed their bloodshot eyes. Cloyd was given the maximum five-year term and Hughes two years. "Frankly, sir, I have no sympathy for you and I sentence you to five years in prison," the judge told Cloyd, who has a history of drunk driving and domestic violence.
■ United States
Caterpillars snack on snails
Scientists in Hawaii have discovered a species of caterpillar with a unique appetite for snails which it traps with spider-like silk and then dines on, the journal Science reported on Thursday. University of Hawaii researchers Daniel Rubinoff and William Haines discovered the caterpillar, dubbed "Hyposmocoma mulluscivora" and its diet, in the Hawaiian rainforest, where they observed its unique method of trapping snails. The caterpillar, which grows to 10mm long, produces a spider-like silk which it uses to bind its prey on a leaf. Then the caterpillar eats the snail, leaving an empty shell.
■ CUBA
Castro fetes Elian
As Cuban President Fidel Castro looked on, Elian Gonzalez, the shipwreck survivor whose custody battle morphed into a US-Cuban political wrestling match, graduated from the sixth grade on Thursday in Havana. The ceremony at a Havana park, during which Castro spoke for an hour, was transmitted live on state radio and television. "His academic performance is very good," Castro said of Elian, now 11, calling him a symbol of advances in Cuban education after personally handing Elian his diploma. "He is a disciplined boy and respectful." In 2000, heavily armed agents broke into the Miami home of Elian's uncle after then-US attorney general Janet Reno ordered the boy returned to his father in Cuba.
■ United Kingdom
Cops to strip on patrol
It isn't so much a plainclothes assignment -- more of a no-clothes one. Police officers are preparing to shed their uniforms to go undercover on a popular naturists' beach. As part of Operation Coast, officers in Dorset are trying to blend in with naturists at Studland Beach to try to catch so-called "doggers" -- people who meet to have or watch casual outdoor sex. But the officers may stand out a bit because they will not strip completely -- instead keeping on swimming trunks or bathing suits. "Studland nudist beach has its own community and it is getting to the stage where people aren't taking their children there because of what has been happening," Dorset Police Inspector Nick Maton said.
■ United States
Video game rated for adults
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas now has an adults-only rating because of explicit sexual content that can be unlocked with an Internet download. The decision followed intense pressure from politicians and media watch groups. The game's producer, Rockstar Games, said it stopped making the current version and would provide new labels to any retailer willing to keep selling the games. The company will also offer a downloadable patch to fix the sex issue in PC versions, and is working on a more secure version.
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