■ Japan
Ecstasy seized
Authorities seized more than 350,000 tablets of Ecstasy in the first six months of this year -- 10 times the amount seized over the same period last year. The bulk of the 357,968 tablets was found by police in February when they seized some 286,000 doses of the drug in Saitama Prefecture. From January to June, the police arrested or questioned 204 people for the possession or use of Ecstasy, a decrease of 3.3 percent from a total of 201 people last year. About 78 percent were between the ages of 20 to 29. The number of people arrested or held in custody for the possession or use of all illegal drugs in the first half of the year reached 7,659, an increase of 6.9 percent from 7,164 a year earlier.
■ Hong Kong
Monkey gets a hand
A monkey knocked down by a motorcyclist was bravely rescued by fellow simians. A group of monkeys ran out and retrieved the injured creature moments after it was run down by the rider. The monkeys pulled their companion, apparently still alive, into undergrowth at the side of the country road. The rescue bid appeared to be in vain, however, as a dead monkey was later found nearby. The motorcyclist, who was thrown from her bike in the collision, needed medical treatment for injuries to her arm. About 20 monkeys are killed every year in traffic accidents in the territory.
■ Philippines
Rebels condemn decision
Communist guerrillas yesterday condemned a decision by the Philippine government to revoke immunity for negotiators participating in peace talks and vowed to hold the administration responsible for any harm that comes to them. The government notified the communist-led National Democratic Front, which has waged war for more than three decades, of its intention to suspend safety guarantees that shielded 97 rebel negotiators, consultants and staff from criminal proceedings against them after the guerrillas backed out of peace talks. Chief rebel negotiator Luis Jalandoni said from his home in the Netherlands that the government was trying to destroy confidence in the peace process. He said the rebels had postponed the talks to wait for a new government.
■ Singapore
China's rise `can't be ignored'
The US will remain the leading power for the foreseeable future but the rising influence of China and India can no longer be ignored, Singapore's defense minister said yesterday. Japan is also playing a more active role in the global strategic arena, making the future of the Asia-Pacific region dependent on the moves by these three regional giants, Defense Minister Teo Chee Hean said. "China and India can no longer be ignored. They both have aspirations to be regional, if not global, powers ... With their sheer size and strategic weight, what these regional powers do will, like shifts in major tectonic plates, reshape the geopolitical contours of the region," Teo said.
■ United States
Joint exercise draws interest
The US military is keenly interested in an unusual joint military exercise by Russian and Chinese troops and will attempt to monitor it. About 10,000 troops from Russia and China are expected to take part in the August 18-25 exercise, which will begin in Vladivostok and move to the Yellow Sea and the Jiaodong Peninsula. The US Pacific Command will attempt to monitor the exercises, said Brigadier General Carter Ham of the US Joint Staff.
■ Canada
Queen's envoy selected
A Haitian-born female journalist from the French-speaking province of Quebec will become Canada's new governor general -- the representative of head of state Queen Elizabeth -- CBC television said on Wednesday. The public broadcaster said Prime Minister Paul Martin would formally unveil CBC television journalist Michaelle Jean, 48, at 11am yesterday. Jean, who will become Canada's first black governor general, will take up her new position on Oct 1.
■ United Kingdom
Reality TV gets too real
The UK's Channel 4 TV station was Wednesday facing renewed calls to take the reality television series Big Brother off the air after a housemate shocked viewers with her drunken behavior. Around 80 complaints were lodged with Ofcom, the UK broadcasting regulators, who also came under criticism for failing to halt the trend for ever more shocking television. During Tuesday night's Big Brother highlights show on Channel 4, broadcast at 10pm, one of the female contestants was shown simulating sex with a blow-up dog, appearing to perform sex acts with a bottle and kissing two male housemates while topless in the house jacuzzi. Kinga Karolczak, 20, a former barmaid and market researcher from London has since apologized and said that she had only been joking.
■ United States
`Brainwashing diet' works
It's a weight loss regime that seems to guarantee success, but researchers may have to work on the name. Proving, it seems, that fighting the flab really is a question of mind over matter, psychologists in the US "brainwashed" a number of volunteers into losing their taste for certain fattening foods by implanting unpleasant childhood memories about them. Even though the memories were false, the psychologists from the University of California managed to successfully turn people off strawberry ice cream, pickles and hard-boiled eggs. In each case they manipulating the volunteers into believing that the foods had made them sick when they were children.
■ Norway
Munch thieves get a surprise
Two masked men stormed into an Oslo hotel early Wednesday and stole what looked like three Edvard Munch artworks, but made off only with worthless photocopies, police said. The Hotel Continental, which has a large art collection, had replaced its original Munch works with copies following the theft of two Munch masterpieces from an Oslo museum last year. "Except for the joy they give the observer, they are worthless," hotel manager Siv Lunde Kolrud said about the stolen copies. Police said the two suspects ran into the hotel, which has a large art collection, at around 8am and lifted copies of three Munch lithographs from the wall of a lounge on the ground floor. They fled in a car, which was found abandoned 2km from the hotel, police said.
■ United Kingdom
Men arrested for axe attack
Two men wanted in connection with the suspected racist axe murder of a black teenager returned to Britain Wednesday from the Netherlands and were immediately arrested, police said. Anthony Walker, an 18-year-old student, was left with the axe embedded in his skull in the assault near his home in Liverpool, northern England, last week. Michael Barton, 17 -- brother of English Premiership footballer Joey Barton -- and Paul Taylor, 20, flew into the city's John Lennon airport from Amsterdam Wednesday evening. The pair returned voluntarily with a lawyer.
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
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