■ South Korea
Executive said to defect
A North Korean living in Hungary and three people believed to be his family have arrived in the South in an apparent rare defection of an official from one of Pyongyang's state-run firms, news reports said yesterday. Most North Korean defectors are ordinary citizens who flee to neighboring China and then seek passage to the South. Only a handful of the elite who work for North Korean firms overseas have ever defected through Europe. The North Korean company official and the others defected in Hungary and were being questioned by Seoul authorities, Yonhap news agency quoted a South Korean government official as saying.
■ China
Go vegetarian to avoid flu
Scared about bird flu? Then the only really safe way to protect yourself is to go vegetarian, an animal rights group said on yesterday. Headlining a new Chinese and English-language Web site (www.avianflu.cn) "Avian flu: it's your fault," the group says it is drawing attention to unsavory factory farming practices. The cramming together of thousands of chickens in buildings where the birds are never allowed outside was an ideal breeding ground for disease, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said in a statement. "Avian flu is just one symptom of a very sick and cruel industry," it quoted PETA Asia-Pacific director Jason Baker as saying.
■ AFghanistan
Bombers die in botched blast
Two suicide bombers were killed in Afghanistan yesterday when one of their bombs went off prematurely, a police official said. The pair were killed while walking along a road on the outskirts of the southern city of Kandahar, which has been hit by a wave of violence in recent months, including suicide attacks on foreign troops. "We've established that the two were suicide attackers and were killed prematurely by their own bombs because of some technical fault," provincial police chief Maalik Wayezi told reporters.
■ Australia
No grounds for whaling
A new study shows there is no justification for scientific whaling programs under which thousands of the mammals have been killed in the name of research, Australia's environment minister said yesterday. "[The 10-year research project] demonstrates once and for all, if it needed to be demonstrated, that the so-called scientific programs of the countries like Japan, Norway and Iceland, are a sham," Campbell told reporters. "Japan claims that the major objectives for its scientific whaling programs are to monitor the Antarctic marine ecosystem," Campbell said. That "is precisely the type of data that Australia has now collected" without killing any whales, he added.
■ New Zealand
US blocks Web porn zone
The US has blocked a move to create a ".xxx" Internet address to take the bulk of pornographic sites on the World Wide Web, according to a newspaper report yesterday. ICANN, the international body that manages the Internet, was earlier reported likely to approve the new address, at a meeting that opened on Monday in Wellington. Stuart Lawley, chairman of Canada's ICM Registry, which developed the proposal, was quoted in the Dominion Post as blaming "religious conservatives in the US that appear to have access to the powers that be" for blocking it. Lawley said it was the third time the US had delayed the creation of ".xxx" addresses.
■ Croatia
Crank caller collared
Police arrested a woman who called the local ambulance thousands of times out of "vengeance and for fun," the Zagreb daily Vecernji List reported yesterday. The woman, 34, was seized after calling the medical emergency number in Sibenik, on the central Adriatic coast, more than 200 times in three days. She would hang up each time the call was answered. The latest spate followed another one, late last year, when she dialled the number an unbelievable 10,000 times in a month. She faces legal action over the first round of calling. "They did not help me once when I was unwell, so now I call out of vengeance and for fun," the newspaper quoted the woman as saying.
■ Finland
PM won't sue tabloid
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said on Monday he would not sue a tabloid newspaper that published reports of private text messages he sent to at least one woman. Vanhanen over the weekend said he was considering legal action against tabloid Ilta-Sanomat, citing violation of his privacy. The tabloid reported on the text messages under the headline "Vanhanen Goes Wild," and alleged that Vanhanen sent several messages to a 35-year-old woman who works as a cosmetician. Vanhanen said that after careful consideration including that such a process could drag on for a year or more, he had decided not to take action. "For my part, the matter ends here," Vanhanen said.
■ Germany
Merkel secretly filmed
Federal police are probing the secret filming of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's home by a museum security camera for several years as a major security breach, a government spokesman said on Monday. The mass-market Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported in a front-page story at the weekend that a security camera filming 24 hours a day at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin was often trained on Merkel's private apartment just opposite. The report said the camera had a clear view inside Merkel's living room and had picked up black-and-white images of her husband, chemistry professor Joachim Sauer, watching television.
■ Germany
Freak tornado kills two
A rare tornado wreaked havoc in the northern German city of Hamburg on Monday, tearing the roofs off houses, overturning cars and killing two people, authorities said. The southern district of Harburg was hardest hit by the violent storm, which knocked down three cranes at a construction site, killing two operators.
■ United States
Protesters mar funerals
Flanked by National Guardsmen and veterans of all ages, Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher signed a law to force protesters to keep their distance from military funerals. The measure signed on Monday is aimed at members of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, who have been demonstrating around the country at funerals for soldiers killed in Iraq. Carrying signs with slogans such as "God Hates Fags," the protesters claim that US soldiers are dying because God is punishing the US for tolerating homosexuality. Kentucky is one of five states that have enacted such laws, and a number of others are considering legislation. The church has said it will obey such laws though it considers them an infringement of its free-speech rights.
■ Iraq
Doctor confesses to killings
A 27-year-old doctor has confessed to killing more than 40 Iraqi soldiers and policemen in Kirkuk by giving them lethal injections, shutting off their oxygen and failing to stop bleeding caused by combat wounds, officials said. A tape of the confession by Loai Omar al-Taii aired over eight days ending Sunday on Kurdish TV in northern Iraq. Al-Taii was arrested last month with seven other suspected insurgents believed to be operating together in Kirkuk. During police interrogation, he also admitted to treating insurgents at the hospital, according to the broadcasts. More details surrounding the arrest, and whether the confession was coerced, were not immediately available.
■ United States
Stun-gun deaths increase
The number of people who have died after being shocked by police stun guns is growing rapidly, Amnesty International says in a report that catalogs 156 deaths in the past five years. Deaths after the use of Taser stun guns have risen from three in 2001 to 61 last year, the group said. Fourteen have died so far this year, it said, citing police and autopsy reports as well as press accounts. The rise in deaths accompanies a marked increase in the number of law-enforcement agencies employing Tasers. About 1,000 of the US' 18,000 police agencies used Tasers in 2001; more than 7,000 departments had them last year, according to a study by Congress' Government Accountability Office (GAO). Police had used Tasers more than 70,000 times as of last year, the GAO said.
■ Nigeria
Charles Taylor disappears
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, wanted for war crimes by a court in Sierra Leone, has disappeared from his residence in southeastern Nigeria, the presidency said yesterday. Taylor disappeared on Monday night, two days after Nigeria said Liberia was free to take him into custody. Nigeria and Liberia were at odds about where he should go and confusion has reigned about his whereabouts since the Nigerian announcement. Taylor had lived in Nigeria since 2003, when he stepped down as president as part of a deal to end Liberia's 14-year civil war that spilled over into nearby countries. Lobby group Human Rights Watch, which had urged Nigeria to increase security around Taylor to prevent his escape, blamed Nigeria for his disappearance.
■ Norway
Size doesn't matter for win
Jan Petter Johansen won the prizes for both the largest fish and the second-largest fish in a contest on Sunday -- with one fish weighing 2g and the other just 1.3g. But that was enough to win him 6,000 kroner (US$925) since he was the only one among 66 fishermen in the first-ever ice-fishing contest on Vaagvannet to catch any fish. "I almost threw the whole catch away," he was quoted as telling the local daily. `"The stickleback [fish] were tangled in some seaweed I pulled up. Luckily, I noticed the big haul."
■ United States
Andrew Card stands down
After more than five years of service through often turbulent times, White House chief of staff Andrew Card resigned and will be replaced by budget director Josh Bolten, US President George W. Bush announced yesterday. Card's departure comes amid calls -- even within Republican circles -- for Bush to make changes that would revitalize his struggling team. In the Oval Office, Bush said Card had offered and he had accepted his resignation. He is to depart on April 14.
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