■ Japan
Palace fries foreign fish
The government has taken action to keep foreign fish out of the moat surrounding the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported yesterday. Environmental Ministry officials on Tuesday went on a mission in an "electric shocker boat" to remove the alien fish. They extended two forks and a 500 volt electric shock wave ran through the water, bringing 14 bass and 530 breams floating to the surface. The fish were then removed. The ministry was expected to discard the alien fish after collecting scientific research, the ministry official said. Bream were first detected in the moat in 1984, but since then the population has grown and become a threat to the indigenous fish, according to the ministry official.
■ Japan
Disgraced architect held
Police arrested a disgraced architect and several construction industry officials yesterday in a scandal over faked earthquake-resistance data for hundreds of buildings. The case has sparked outrage in Japan, one of the world's most earthquake-prone nations, and triggered a series of nationally televised parliamentary hearings that detailed illegal cost-cutting in the construction business. The high-profile arrests include architect Hidetsugu Aneha, 48, who allegedly designed more than 200 buildings using faked quake data, a Tokyo Metropolitan Police spokeswoman confirmed.
■ Hong Kong
Millions in fines outstanding
The government is owed nearly US$12 million in unpaid court fines, according to an official auditor's report yesterday. Overdue and unpaid fines imposed for a variety of offences by magistrates courts across the city of 6.8 million currently amount to US$11.99 million, Hong Kong's director of audit said. Many of the existing outstanding fines are owed by women from mainland China for prostitution-related offences and the director of audit recommended putting them on an immigration watchlist. There has been a sharp rise in the number of mainland women arrested for vice-related offences since border restrictions were eased in 2003 and many leave Hong Kong without paying court fines.
■ Togo
China funds palace
President Faure Gnassingbe of Togo on Monday inaugurated a new presidential palace fully funded by China in the capital, an official said on Tuesday. The building was also built by Chinese experts, a Togolese government official said. The total amount invested by China for the construction of the palace spanning over 6,343m2, was not revealed. The vast and prestigious building, in a residential district north of the Togolese capital, boasts two levels comprising among other facilities, 40 offices.
■ China
Anti-terror drills planned
Defense ministers from China, Russia and four Central Asian nations agreed on new joint anti-terrorism drills next year as they gathered yesterday to discuss regional security, including the threat from. Islamic militancy. Ministers from the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization were meeting in Beijing to address regional security and the "three forces of separatism, terrorism and extremism," China's official Xinhua News Agency said, using China's catch-phrase for Islamic militancy. Experts would meet later to plan the exercises between the members, Xinhua said.
■ Kenya
Pay hike demand raises ire
Members of parliament (MPs) have provoked outrage by demanding a huge increase in their mileage allowance, even as donors launch record appeals to help feed millions of Kenyans. Last week MPs blocked the national budget in an attempt to force the government's hand. Their action has caused widespread public anger. Although heavy rains have ended the drought in most areas, more than 3 million Kenyans need urgent food aid and financial help to rebuild their cattle herds. Last week, Oxfam launched its biggest food crisis appeal, seeking &$163;20 million (US$35.7 million) to help feed 11 million people in east Africa.
■ Turkey
Chewing gums up official
Veysel Dalci, head of the local branch of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Black Sea town of Fatsa has been arrested for chewing gum while laying a wreath at a monument to the country's revered founder Kemal Ataturk, the state Anatolian news agency said on Monday. He was charged with insulting Ataturk's memory during Sunday's ceremony marking National Sovereignty Day. CNN Turk TV quoted Dalci, a 38-year-old pharmacist and father of two, as saying he chewed gum to hide the smell of garlic which he had eaten the previous evening.
■ Italy
Offending poster nixed
The Interior Ministry said on Tuesday it would remove a poster promoting the movie The Da Vinci Code from the scaffolding of a Rome church undergoing renovation, after church officials complained. The enormous poster, featuring a picture of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and the upcoming film's title, was plastered a few weeks ago on the scaffolded facade of the church of St. Pantaleo. "It advertises something that is against Christ and against the church," said St. Pantaleo's rector, the Reverence Adolfo Garcia Duran. The ministry said the poster would be removed soon.
■ Chad
US opposes rebel bid
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto said on Tuesday that there was evidence of Sudanese backing for rebels fighting to topple Chadian President Idriss Deby and said the US opposed any attempt to oust him by force. Yamamoto said the African Union was investigating whether Khartoum had sponsored an April 13 attack by insurgents on Chad's capital N'Djamena. "The overthrow of any government is unacceptable by any group or foreign authority," he said, adding that Deby had to allow the opposition to participate fully in presidential elections planned for May 3. The opposition parties boycotting next week's elections say they will not be transparent.
■ United Kingdom
Pub ghost causes chaos
Yorkshire police were summoned early on Tuesday by a pub landlord who found a ghost in his establishment's lavatories with a taste for flooding them. Roger Froggatt, 55, and his wife, who run the Low Valley Arms in Darfield, were woken up by the sound of their alarm. Froggatt went downstairs and was surprised to find a woman in a long white robe with only half a face in the pub's toilets. When the police arrived the TV sets in the bars started working. And as the officers entered the toilets the flushes began to work on their own, eventually flooding the place. A police spokesman confirmed the ghost story.
■ Canada
Conservatives pan Kyoto
The new Conservative government, which is openly skeptical about the Kyoto climate change protocol, said on Tuesday it backs a breakaway group of six nations that favor a voluntary approach to cutting emissions of greenhouse gases. The Conservatives -- whose power base is in the energy-rich western province of Alberta -- say the country cannot meet its Kyoto targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Environment Minister Rona Ambrose said she favors the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which groups the US, Australia, Japan, China, India and South Korea. The pact looks at how to develop technologies to reduce emissions rather than having specific reduction targets.
■ United States
New spokesman named
Tony Snow, a commentator and radio show host on the Fox News broadcasting network, has been selected to be the new official White House spokesman, Fox News reported on Tuesday. Snow will replace outgoing press secretary Scott McClellan, who announced his resignation last week as part of a shake-up of President George W. Bush's top staff. A career journalist and columnist, Snow did a stint as speechwriter in the White House for Bush's father former president George Bush in 1991. He hosted the Fox News Sunday television interview show from 1996 to 2003, scoring interviews with top Bush administration officials and foreign leaders like Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
■ United States
Abu Ghraib head charged
The US Army plans to charge Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, the former head of the interrogation center at Abu Ghraib prison, with dereliction of duty, lying to investigators and conduct unbecoming an officer, the officer's lawyer said on Tuesday. Jordan would be the highest-ranking officer at Abu Ghraib to face criminal charges in connection with the abuses at the prison. Ten low-ranking soldiers who served at the prison outside Baghdad have been convicted.
■ United States
Birds good at grammar
The simplest grammar, long thought to be one of the skills that separates man from beast, can be taught to a common songbird, new research suggests. Starlings learned to differentiate between a regular bird "sentence" and one containing a clause or another sentence, according to a study in today's edition of Nature. It took University of California at San Diego psychology researcher Tim Gentner a month and about 15,000 training attempts, with food as a reward, to get the birds to recognize the most basic of grammar. Yet what they learned may shake up the field of linguistics.
■ Mexico
Candidate defeats chair
The conservative rising star of the country's presidential election scored well in a first televised debate on Tuesday, gaining more ground on his leftist rival who stayed away and was represented by an empty chair. Felipe Calderon of the ruling National Action Party appeared to come out ahead in some fiery exchanges with other candidates and may have given himself another boost after a recent surge in opinion polls. The election will determine whether the country joins a growing number of Latin American nations moving to the political left or whether it stays firmly allied to the US.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
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