■ China
Clinics shut over fetus leaks
Hebei Province has closed more than 200 clinics for telling women the sex of their fetuses so they can abort girls, a state newspaper said yesterday. China launched a one-child policy in the early 1980s to curb its population, now over 1.3 billion, but the restrictions have bolstered a traditional preference for baby boys. In rural areas of Hebei, there were 134 boys born for every 100 girls, the Shanghai Daily said. That compares with about 108 boys born in China for every 100 girls in the early 1980s, close to a current global demographic norm of 103 to 107 boys per 100 girls. The investigation involved 848 cases of illegal abortion and gender selection services, the report, said without giving a time frame.
■ Philippines
Swiss man shot dead
A suspected hired gun fatally shot a 68-year-old Swiss national in the southern Philippines, police said yesterday. Karl Ochsenbein was shot at close range on Tuesday night inside his home on the resort island of Samal, 970km southeast of Manila, after an argument with his Filipina wife, Alma Cortina, said Chief Superintendent Ricardo Quinto, the regional police director. An investigation showed the couple had a heated argument, prompting Cortina to leave the family home, only to return later without locking the door behind her. The assailant, wearing a baseball cap, entered the couple's bedroom, shot the victim and flee on foot, Quinto said. "We have ruled out robbery as motive because no item was taken from the house or from the victim," said the island's police chief, Superintendent Joe Carumba. Carumba said they were focusing their probe on family members, including the widow, who allegedly told neighbors she wanted her husband dead.
■ Indonesia
Ex-dictator leaves hospital
Former dictator Suharto left hospital yesterday after 27 days of treatment following colon surgery to stem internal bleeding. Suharto, 84, appeared pale but smiled and waved weakly as he was wheeled on a gurney to an ambulance to be driven home. Pertamina Hospital Director Adji Suprajitno said the functioning of Suharto's kidneys and intestines as well as other vital signs had improved. "Suharto wanted to go home because he has been hospitalized for so long, and the team of doctors also believed that medical treatment for Suharto can be moved to his house," he said.
■ South Korea
Letter sheds light on killings
Authorities have requested more information from the US government about a 1950 letter in which the US ambassador to Seoul told the US State Department that soldiers would shoot refugees approaching their lines. The letter was dated the day of the US Army's mass killing of South Korean refugees at No Gun Ri during the 1950-1953 Korean War. It is the strongest indication yet that such a policy existed for all US forces in Korea, and the first evidence that the policy was known to upper ranks of the US government. "We're doing various checks about the report," a Foreign Ministry official said on customary condition of anonymity, adding that the government has asked Washington about the existence of the letter from Ambassador John Muccio to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
■ Bangladesh
Soccer fans riot for new TV
University students demanding a new television set to watch the World Cup ran amok on Tuesday, ransacking an administrator's office. About 100 students at Dhaka University smashed an old television and set fire to chairs which they said were broken and infested with bugs, Professor Anwarul Islam said to reporters. "The students ransacked the office, broke chairs and window panes," he said, adding that the protest was called off after university authorities agreed to purchase a new television set and chairs.
■ Australia
The `Butt Force' has landed
Sydney has had enough of careless smokers who dispose of their butts in the street. Coinciding with World No Tobacco Day yesterday, a team of 30 plain-clothed rangers were prowling Sydney streets as part of an anti-smoking and litter crackdown. Nicknamed by local media as "Butt Busters" and the "Butt Force," the rangers have been issuing fines of A$60 (US$45) for smokers who dump their butts in the streets instead of in designated bins. Monica Barone, acting chief executive of the city, said 45 smokers had been fined in the past week for indiscriminate cigarette littering.
■ Vietnam
Forecaster blamed for deaths
The man blamed for failing to warn fisherman of an approaching typhoon, which left nearly 200 people missing and presumed dead, has been removed from his post, the minister in charge said yesterday. Le Cong Thanh, general director of the National Meteorological Forecast Centre in Hanoi, issued a typhoon warning in mid-May, but the alert came a day too late. As a result, hundreds of fishermen in small boats were caught in high seas and heavy winds. Thanh, vilified by the press, has expressed regret but he refused to take responsibility for the forecast. He said his office did the best job it could with the equipment it has. Thanh was dismissed on Tuesday and replaced by a Russian-trained meteorologist.
■ Germany
Berlin police stumped
Berlin police briefly shut down a downtown street and evacuated a building on Tuesday after construction workers found a tree stump. The workers initially thought the hard object they dug into could have been a World War II-era bomb -- a relatively common find in the capital, much of which was turned to rubble during the war. The workers reported their find at 10:15am and Berlin's Reinhardtstrasse was closed to traffic for about 45 minutes as police investigated. In one of the more spectacular past bomb finds, a 250kg British bomb was plucked from under the lower ring of seats at Berlin's Olympic Stadium in 2002 as it was undergoing renovations.
■ Israel
Palestinians fire rockets
Palestinian militants fired homemade rockets at a town near the Gaza Strip yesterday, and one landed near the home of the defense minister. The violent Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for firing three Qassam rockets, including two that hit residential areas in the border town of Sderot, home to Defense Minister Amir Peretz. Palestinian militants in Gaza have fired hundreds of crude rockets at border towns in more than five years of fighting. The military has launched air strikes at rocket squads, but has been unable to stop the barrage. On Tuesday, defense forces killed three members of an Islamic Jihad rocket squad in the military's first ground incursion into Gaza since its pullout from the coastal strip last year.
■ Spain
English classes subsidized
The government, fed up with the national reputation for not speaking foreign languages, will give young people up to 1,000 euros (US$1,300) each to study English. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero homed in on his country's linguistic failings in his annual State of the Nation address to parliament on Tuesday, in which he announced the subsidy for people aged from 18 to 30. "I have set myself the task of overcoming our traditional shortcomings with regard to languages," said Zapatero, who cannot speak English but once tried his uncertain French in an address to France's National Assembly.
■ Latvia
MP warned over `snout'
The commission tasked with implementing a new code of parliamentary ethics in the Baltic state of Latvia closed its first-ever case on Tuesday by issuing a written warning to a member of parliament (MP) who used the word "snout" in parliament. Nationalist MP Peteris Tabuns was initially accused of insulting an ethnic group. The charge was changed to that of using inappropriate language after parliamentary records were checked. On May 11 during a debate, Tabuns said: "You can shame Latvians as much as you want, it's nothing -- but God forbid that some Russian should get one in the snout."
■ Netherlands
Pedophiles to launch party
Pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations from 16 to 12 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage. The Charity, Freedom and Diversity party said on its Web site it would be officially registered yesterday, proclaiming: "We are going to shake The Hague awake!" The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether. "A ban just makes children curious," one of the party's founders said.
■ Brazil
Violence threatens Indians
Almost one-third of the nation's isolated Indian tribes face extinction unless the government defines the boundaries and gives them control of their land, the Catholic Church Missionary Council (CIMI) said in a report released on Tuesday. More than 100 Indians have been killed in recent years as loggers, ranchers and farmers have expanded farther into the Amazon rain forest, the report said. Of 60 groups that have little or no contact with Western civilization, at least 17 "are under serious risk of death and even extinction," it said. Saulo Feitosa, CIMI vice president,said that Indians in two states have been victims of "genocidal crimes ... practiced by death squads working for land speculators, loggers and farmers."
■ Canada
Smoking bans take effect
Sweeping smoking bans were to take effect at midnight yesterday in Ontario and Quebec amid protests by smokers that the prohibitions are unfair. Some bar and restaurant owners have vowed to flout the new laws. "Canada's adult smokers are tired of feeling powerless and voiceless as they are hit time and again with increasing taxes, more severe restrictions, and social stigmatization," said Nancy Daigneault, president of the smokers' rights association mychoice.com, on its Web site. The association is funded by tobacco firms. Quebec Health Minister Philippe Couillard said 75 inspectors are poised to descend on the province's more than 6,000 bars and restaurants at one minute past midnight to nab potential scofflaws.
■ United States
Dig for Hoffa called off
The FBI on Tuesday called off its two-week long search for the body of Jimmy Hoffa on a Michigan horse farm after failing to recover anything that might help solve the 31-year-old mystery of the Teamsters leader's disappearance. The FBI tore down a barn and excavated several sites on the Hidden Dreams Farm near Detroit looking for evidence of a makeshift grave said by a prison inmate to contain the union boss' remains. Officials said the investigation into Hoffa's apparent murder would continue. Hoffa was declared dead in 1982.
■ Mexico
Leftist's ad blitz falls short
Leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador promised on Tuesday to increase income for the poor in a TV ad blitz that fell short of expectations he would make a major economic announcement. In a prime-time one-minute spot broadcast simultaneously on main TV channels, he said his plans for the economy would raise the incomes of families earning less than 9,000 pesos (US$796) by 20 percent. He said he would slash government costs, cut energy prices and increase welfare programs would mean more money in the pockets of the poor across the board.
■ United States
Police find caged pit bulls
Denver police, responding to neighbors' complaints about loud, late-night barking, found 36 pit bulls in cages and 38-year-old Michael Padilla, whose fingertip had just been bitten off. Padilla said he had recently brought the dogs to Colorado from Texas, for a show. However, the dogs, banned by a city ordinance, were in poor health, police said in a statement. "Many of the dogs discovered at this location had injuries that could possibly be consistent with prior altercations with another animal," police said in a statement. The dogs were taken to a pound and Padilla was served for 108 violations.
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
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