■ Japan
PM candidate bloodied
The battle has yet to start, but one contender is already bleeding. Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, one of the men widely tipped as a candidate to take over as prime minister in September, appeared outside parliament in red cycling shorts yesterday, after biking around the imperial palace in central Tokyo. A brush with a shrub en route had left the bespectacled minister with a bleeding calf. "I like to go pretty fast," said Tanigaki, 60, a keen cyclist who was taking part in an event to promote the use of two wheels in the capital.
■ Bangladesh
City to levy polygamy tax
Rajshahi, the nation's fourth-largest city, will impose taxes on polygamists to deter the "outdated" practice of marrying more than one wife, an official said yesterday. The tax will come into force from July 1, Mayor Mijanur Rahman Minu said. Any man marrying a second wife will face a one-time tax of 10,000 taka (US$142). The tax will rise to 30,000 taka for a third marriage and 40,000 taka for a fourth, Minu said.
■ China
Huang makes appearance
State media have said that Vice Premier Huang Ju (黃菊), previously reported to be ill with pancreatic cancer, made an official appearance yesterday, the first since he left public view earlier this year. Huang, 67, is ranked sixth in the all-powerful Standing Committee of the Communist Party Politburo and is an ally of former party chief Jiang Zemin (江澤民). His illness sparked rumors of his impending retirement and jostling over his replacement. But yesterday, Huang attended a gathering of top scientists in Beijing.
■ China
Mass grave uncovered
Construction workers in the northeast have uncovered a mass grave with 500 skeletons, state media reported yesterday. Workers digging on a site in Jilin Province's Changchun city found six ditches with the skeletons laid out in an orderly fashion about 1.5m underground, the Beijing Morning Post reported. Little information has emerged about the origin of the skeletons but the report, citing local residents, speculated it could have been a burial ground during the Japanese occupation in the 1930s and 1940s.
■ Nigeria
Western oil workers freed
On Sunday, armed militants freed eight Western oil workers held hostage for two days after oil companies agreed to distribute more wealth to local communities, officials said. The American, Canadian and six Britons were freed unharmed, starting with two Britons early in the morning and the remainder later in the day, regional government spokesman Ekiyor Welson said. "I have just been officially informed that the remaining six hostages have all been released," he said.
■ australia
Manilow versus hooligans
A local council in Sydney thinks playing a tape loop of Barry Manilow's hits in a car park that at weekends is taken over by drag racers will get rid of the unwanted revelers and their souped-up vehicles. "You've got hundreds of these car hoons who turn up at the car park and lift up their hoods and rev up their engines," Rockdale Councillor Bill Saravinovski told national broadcaster ABC yesterday. "We're giving the Barry Manilow music a go, because it's been tried elsewhere and been a success."
■ United Kingdom
Big Ben falls silent
The quarter-hour chimes of the great clock of London's Houses of Parliament fell silent yesterday for a month of repair, but Big Ben will continue to toll the hours. The chimes in St Stephen's Tower will be silent while a new yoke is fitted to the largest of the quarter bells. The famous clock has been a landmark in London since 1859.
■ United States
Man dies in cemetery chase
A motorist who sped through a cemetery in an apparent road-rage pursuit of a car that cut him off died after crashing into a mausoleum, police said. The man's classic Corvette skidded out of control on a turn in the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Hayward, California, and crashed in front of mourners watching a nearby burial on Sunday, police Lieutenant Gary Branson said. A pair of crypts inside the mausoleum were jarred open, but the caskets inside were not damaged, he said. The 52-year-old driver's identity was not released, pending notification of relatives, the Alameda County Coroner's Bureau said.
■ United States
Pentagon rewriting rules
New policies on prisoners being drawn up by the Pentagon will omit a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday. Citing unidentified but knowledgeable military officials, it said the step would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift by the US away from strict adherence to international standards. The decision could end a lengthy debate within the defense department but will not become final until the Pentagon makes the new guidelines public, it said. The State Department fiercely opposes the decision, it said.
■ Poland
Cabinet arouses concern
Israel and the US have warned the government of their deep concern at the inclusion of a highly conservative party in Warsaw's coalition Cabinet. Rising anti-Semitism in Poland has prompted diplomats to express their unease at the presence of the League of Polish Families at the Cabinet table. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the governing Law and Justice party, shored up the coalition government last month by inviting the league and the populist Self-Defense party to join the Cabinet. Members of the League of Polish Families' youth wing regularly carry Nazi placards on rallies.
■ United States
Annan supports migrants
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday weighed into a raging political debate in the US over illegal immigration, insisting that migrants and their aspirations are "the motors of human progress." In an article published in the Wall Street Journal, Annan made no direct reference to an immigration reform plan approved by the US Senate last month. But he showcased what he saw as general benefits of worker migration, arguing that migrants do essential jobs, which a nation's established residents are reluctant to undertake.
■ Italy
Memorial honors veterans
A small crowd of British veterans stood proudly in the heart of Rome on Sunday as a memorial was unveiled honoring the Allied forces that fought and died to liberate the city in June 1944 . The monument, a bronze bas relief that depicts an Italian woman gratefully embracing an Allied soldier, stands in the Piazza Venezia, near the Victor Emmanuel monument housing the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
‘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