■ South Korea
Google causes concern
South Korea is raising concerns with the US government over a service offered by Internet company Google that displays satellite photos of sites across the globe, the president's office said yesterday. South Korean newspaper reports in recent days have noted that the Google Earth service provides images of the presidential Blue House and military bases in the country, which remains technically at war with communist North Korea. North Korean sites such as its main nuclear research facility at Yongbyon are also displayed on the service, which was launched in June. Presidential spokesman Kim Man-soo said that the office was planning to raise concerns with US authorities.
■ Australia
Politician attempts suicide
An Australian politician who quit his party's leadership after calling the Asian-born wife of his political opponent a "mail-order bride" was in hospital yesterday after an apparent suicide bid. John Brogden, 36, who quit as leader of the New South Wales state opposition Liberal party on Monday after his racist remark was made public, was found unconscious with self-harm wounds in his Sydney electorate office on Tuesday night, local media said. The apparent suicide bid shocked his conservative party colleagues who called a halt to campaigning to elect a new state party leader. "Nothing is worth trying to end it all," Liberal Australian treasurer Peter Costello told reporters.
■ Uzekistan
Activist sent to asylum
A leading human rights activist in Uzbekistan has been locked up in a psychiatric hospital in an echo of Soviet-style practices after distributing anti-government leaflets which prosecutors claimed insulted the country's emblem. Elena Urlayeva had earlier criticized President Islam Karimov for the Andizhan massacre in May when government troops allegedly shot hundreds of protesters. Talib Yakubov, chairman of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, said Urlayeva had on previous occasions been detained and forcibly injected with drugs. Karimov's regime is accused of a catalogue of human rights abuses and fears a backlash from opposition groups.
■ New Zealand
Hammer-attacker guilty
A father of four pleaded guilty yesterday to the claw-hammer beating of a truck driver -- a brutal road rage attack caught on security cameras that shocked New Zealand. Toma Lauaki, 35, admitted one count of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. The victim, Barry Fletcher, remains in stable condition in hospital with multiple fractures to his right ankle and left wrist, lacerations to the bone on his lower right leg, and extensive bruising on his arms. After ripping open the door to Fletcher's rig as he waited to make a delivery, Lauaki bludgeoned him using the hammer's long claw, with one blow puncturing his right leg down to the bone. Fletcher suffered multiple bone fractures in the attack.
■ South Korea
Roh could give up power
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun has hinted he could give up power earlier than the end of his term if it would help foster political harmony in the country, according to comments released yesterday by his office. "Provided that a new political culture and a new era can be opened, I have even considered retiring from the forefront of politics or shortening my tenure," Roh was quoted as telling legislators from his ruling Uri Party late Tuesday at the presidential Blue House.
■ United Kingdom
Cellphones safe, for now
Ten years of using a mobile phone results in no increased risk of a tumor in the nerve connecting the ear to the brain, researchers said on Tuesday. But the scientists who conducted the largest study so far on the subject said they could not rule out a higher risk over a longer period. "Whether there are longer-term risks remains unknown, reflecting the fact that this is a relatively recent technology," Anthony Swerdlow of the Institute of Cancer Research said. The study, published in the in the British Journal of Cancer, focused on the risk of acoustic neuroma, benign tumors in the nerve connecting the ear and inner ear to the brain.
■ Germany
`Cat burglar' trashes house
German police called to a break-in at an apartment in the northern town of Itzstedt found the intruder still on the premises and hiding under a kitchen cabinet. The "cat burglar" had somehow crawled into the ground-floor of the apartment, broken window blinds, torn down drapes and trashed furniture. Police also found fish and fish remains from a broken aquarium scattered around the apartment, said Julika Reinhardt, spokesman for the police in the town north of Hamburg. Two officers finally found the offender, a cat, hiding under a kitchen cabinet but the heavyweight male resisted arrest, biting one officer in the thumb before they both managed to overpower it. Reinhardt said the cat, wearing a name tag, was returned to its owner who would have to pay for the damage.
■ United States
Students in murder plot
Three Tennessee middle school students were charged with plotting to kill a teacher for disciplining one of them, and of bringing a gun to school to carry out their plan, authorities said. The plot was foiled when the handgun discharged Thursday morning in a bathroom at Maury Middle School as the boys were examining it. The bullet went through a door and hit one of the students in the leg. "It could have been worse had she not been sick that day," Sheriff David Davenport said of the teacher. "She didn't come to school. So she was very fortunate." The boys, two 12-year-olds and a 14-year-old, were charged Tuesday in juvenile court with conspiracy to commit murder.
■ United States
Freezing immigrants found
Fifty-five illegal immigrants from Mexico were found in a refrigerated truck with an internal temperature of only a few degrees above freezing, the US Border Patrol said Tuesday. The migrants had crossed the US-Mexico border near Yuma, Arizona, Monday and had been in the truck only a half-hour or so when they were found, said Border Patrol Agent Amber Galloway. The men and women appeared to be in good health, Galloway said.
■ United Kingdom
Narrow house on sale
A central London house measuring just over 1.52m at its most narrow and 3.02m at its widest is up for sale for more than half a million pounds (US$900,000), estate agents said Tuesday. Agents are asking £525,000 (US$933,868) for the narrow home, which is spread over five levels and used to be a hat shop before being converted into living quarters. Estate company Winkworths said the house, which they describe in promotional material as being "utterly amazing and almost certainly unique," was the narrowest they had ever offered for sale.
■ Iraq
Newsman still in US custody
A Reuters cameraman remained in US military custody in Baghdad on Tuesday, two days after surviving an incident in which his soundman was shot dead, apparently by US troops. US officers said they were continuing to question Haider Kadhem, 24, about "inconsistencies" in his statements after he was taken from the car in which soundman Waleed Khaled was killed by multiple shots while on a news assignment. Iraqi police said US troops fired on the team, both Iraqis.
■ United Kingdom
Clarke in Tory-leader bid
Former UK finance minister Kenneth Clarke launched a bid for the leadership of the main opposition Conservative Party on Tuesday. Clarke, 65, announced his third attempt to lead his party in yesterday's edition of the conservative Daily Mail newspaper. "I am determined that Britain should be governed better than it has been under [Prime Minister Tony Blair's] New Labour," he told the tabloid. "I am horrified by a government run on a basis of spin. The political health of Britain has deteriorated very sharply. The Conservative Party must do something about it, and I am the man to do it."
■ Canada
Gay affair is adultery: court
A Canadian woman won a divorce on Tuesday after a Vancouver court conceded that her husband's affair with another man did in fact amount to adultery. In the first case of its kind in the country, the British Columbia Supreme Court granted a woman it named only as Ms. P. an immediate divorce from her husband of 17 years after he admitted to having an affair with a younger man. In February Justice Nicole Garson had declined to grant the divorce, arguing that the common-law definition of adultery does not include homosexual relations.
■ United States
S Korean a conspirator
A South Korean man was sentenced to nearly three years in prison on Tuesday by a Boston US District Court for his role in a scheme to buy military engines for Black Hawk helicopters and then divert them to China. Kwonhwan Park and his Malaysian company, SGS, claimed that the two engines were either for the Malaysian Army or the South Korean Army in an application to the US State Department but the shipment actually was sent to China from Malaysia.
■ United Kingdom
Death threats over bill
A man was sent a letter threatening him with hospitalization and horrors worse than the London bombings if he failed to pay his phone bill. The Royal Mail customer was warned in an unsigned letter on official notepaper that the London terrorist attacks would be nothing compared to the suffering heading his way, the Daily Mirror reported yesterday. Kevin Harding, 39, from Carlisle in northwest England, switched phone line provider to Royal Mail as it promised cheaper calls to his girlfriend in the US.
■ United Kingdom
Bomb hoaxer sentenced
A man who planted a fake bomb outside an Indian restaurant, hoping to strike fear into the immigrant community following the London bombings in July, was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Tuesday. Graeme Maynard, 39, of London, assembled a fake bomb from a cooking oil container, some wires and a mobile phone after drinking eight cans of beer on July 29, prosecutors said. It was placed outside the Asia Restaurant in Rochdale, northwest England.
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