■ China
Slaughterhouse shuttered
Health inspectors have shut down an illegal slaughterhouse in northeastern China for butchering sick pigs, part of a sweeping effort to contain an outbreak of pig-borne disease that has killed 38 people. Inspectors swooped on the unregistered abbatoir in the city of Gongzhuling in Jilin province this week and found it had been supplying meat to a sausage factory in the provincial capital, Changchun, which had also been shut down. "Inspectors found six to eight tonnes of pork in the underground slaughterhouse, and our tests showed at least one tonne came from pigs who had died of illness," Liu Tienan, head of the provincial health inspection bureau, told reporters.
■ China
13 miners die in blaze
Thirteen coal miners died in an underground fire at a pit in northern China's Hebei province, state press said yesterday. The blaze started late Wednesday when wooden support pillars in shafts at the Taodingshan Coal Mine in Handan county caught fire, said the Yanzhao Metropolis Daily. It did not say what sparked the fire. Thirteen workers were underground at the time and they were all found dead Thursday, it said, adding that the mine was operating illegally after being ordered to shut a year ago. Earlier this week China ordered more than 5,000 unlicensed coal mines to suspend operations for safety inspections in a bid to improve one of its most dangerous industries. China's mines are considered the most deadly in the world, with safety often sacrificed to supply the fuel that is driving the country's rapid industrialization and economic growth. Thousands of miners die every year.
■ Hong Kong
Diplomat urges democracy
The new top US diplomat in Hong Kong yesterday called for more democracy in the former British colony that returned to Chinese rule eight years ago. "The United States wants Hong Kong to succeed," US Consul General James Cunningham said, adding that Washington supported "a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong and the expansion of democracy." The territory enjoys Western-style freedoms under an arrangement dubbed "one country, two systems," but it has limited democracy. The legislature is partially elected and the territory's leader is picked by a 800-member committee dominated by pro-Beijing figures.
■ Australia
Speargun killer gets life
A man who confessed to murdering his pregnant wife and baby girl with a speargun received two life jail sentences yesterday from a judge who called his actions "unspeakably callous." John Myles Sharpe, 38, was ordered to spend a minimum 33 years in prison for the murders of his New Zealand-born wife, Anna Kemp 41, and the couple's 19-month-old daughter Gracie. During his trial in February, Sharpe pleaded guilty to killing Kemp with two speargun shots to the head as she slept in their Melbourne area home in March last year. Sharpe, a former bank worker, told police he buried his wife's body in a shallow grave behind their home and then four days later shot and killed Gracie with four spears in an act of "irrational bloody madness."
■ Australia
Authorities plan use of SMS
Authorities in Sydney unveiled plans yesterday to use SMS messaging and emails to evacuate the city center in the event of a terrorist attack. Under the plan, modelled on how British police handled last month's bombings in London, an emergency command center will use SMS texting, email and telephones to alert security managers and fire wardens in some 1,500 buildings in Sydney's business district. Building managers would use public address systems and electronic messaging to direct people to one of three pre-determined "marshalling sites" set up in open areas around the city center.
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