■ China
Disco crackdown launched
Beijing has banned disco and other dance music in private rooms of nightclubs and karaoke bars to curb the flood of illegal drugs into the capital's entertainment venues, newspapers reported yesterday. "Because many drug takers regularly dance and go crazy to upbeat `disco' music in private rooms, police have specially requested karaoke machines not have this music," the Beijing Times said. Club owners are now expected to delete disco and "other forms of vulgar entertainment" from karaoke machines in private rooms, the newspaper said, as part of a "responsibility agreement" written up by police.
■ China
Anti-Japan protesters jailed
Authorities have jailed four people in connection with anti-Japanese rallies in Shanghai last year for three to seven months, a Japanese official said. "Arrests were made right after the original demonstration and the Chinese government has informed us of the result of the trials -- in these cases, the maximum penalty is seven months," Japanese Consul General Yuji Kumumuru said yesterday. "But we have not been fully informed of who these people were and we don't know which court has made the ruling," he said.
■ Pakistan
Five foreigners detained
Authorities have detained five foreigners -- four Turks and an Afghan -- traveling to the Afghan border on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda, security officials said. "They are all foreigners and might have links to al-Qaeda," said an intelligence official in Quetta. The five were traveling on a bus and detained at a checkpoint late on Thursday while on their way to the South Waziristan border region, he said.
■ Australia
Harriet dies at 176
A 176-year-old giant tortoise believed to have been studied by famed English naturalist Charles Darwin has died at the Australia Zoo in Queensland. Senior veterinarian John Hangar said the 150kg reptile died on Thursday night after a short illness. "She had a fairly acute heart attack and thankfully passed away quietly overnight," Hangar told ABC radio. Harriet was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's oldest living animal. Harriet was hatched on the Galapagos Islands in 1830 and was taken to England by Darwin. She ended up at the Botanic Gardens in Brisbane sometime between 1850 and 1860 and eventually was moved to the Australia Zoo.
■ Sri Lanka
Civilians spooked by boom
A sonic boom from an air force Kafir jet was the cause of widespread panic among war-weary residents of Colombo yesterday, military officials said. The explosion was reported over the Pamunugama area, 12km north of the capital, yesterday morning, prompting the navy and the air force to carry out a search operation in the area. Air force spokesman Group Captain Ajantha de Silva said a training unit confirmed that the sound heard by residents was a sonic boom, a loud noise created when the jet passes through the sound barrier.
■ Cambodia
Sihanouk overcomes cancer
Former king Norodom Sihanouk said his cancer was pronounced cured by Chinese doctors and he is in good health in a speech broadcast on national television. Sihanouk abdicated in favor of his son, Norodom Sihamoni, after a shock announcement in October 2004 citing health reasons and his age, and then underwent lengthy chemotherapy treatment in Beijing to treat a recurrence of colon cancer. Sihanouk turns 84 this year. He is still regarded as a living god by many Cambodians, who see his return as an indication of political stability in the kingdom. He has suffered from a range of health problems in recent years, including high blood pressure and diabetes.
■ Philippines
Arroyo stays in hospital
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo remained in hospital yesterday because of a severe bout of diarrhea, but doctors said she was recovering well. Police have been placed on full alert since Arroyo was rushed to the St. Luke's Hospital in Quezon City in metropolitan Manila late on Thursday. The 59-year-old president was suffering from abdominal pains, vomiting and diarrhea when she was taken to hospital, said attending physician Julieta Cervantes.
■ United Kindom
Balloons serenade sleepers
Seven hot-air balloons fitted with loudspeakers drifted through the English sky at dawn yesterday in a novel musical attempt to inspire the sleeping earthbound masses to dream. Specially composed works, inspired by Midsummer Night's Dream, filled the early-morning air, as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's ongoing Complete Works Festival in Stratford-on-Avon. "We hope to place people in a space somewhere on the edge of sleep in a meditative waking state, and then to inspire their imagination, sculpting dreams with music and spatial sound," event organizer Luke Jerram said. Researchers from the University of the West of England in Bristol monitored the event to see if it produced the desired results.
■ South Africa
De Klerk off ventilator
Former president FW de Klerk has been taken off a ventilator and is recovering from complications after a cancer operation this month, a spokesman said. De Klerk, 70, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela in 1993 for helping to end apartheid and establish a multi-racial democracy, was put on a ventilator in a Cape Town hospital two weeks ago after suffering respiratory problems. He contracted a new lung infection last week and underwent a tracheotomy to assist his breathing. "He's doing very well. He's walking around. He's making a good recovery," de Klerk's spokesman said.
■ Ukraine
Former PM nominated
The new governing coalition has nominated Yulia Tymoshenko, who was fired as prime minister last year, to return to head the next government, a top coalition official said after meeting in Kiev with President Viktor Yushchenko yesterday. "Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc determines the candidacy. We support it. So you can consider that [her] candidacy has been presented to the president," said Roman Bezsmertnyi, a leader of Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc. The nomination must still be approved by parliament.
■ Spain
Oldest spider web found
The world's oldest known spider's web with trapped insects was discovered near the eastern city of Teruel, showing that spiders span their nets when the dinosaurs still populated the Earth, Spanish media reported yesterday. The orb web containing 26 strands was made 110 million years ago in a conifer forest -- and preserved in a piece of amber. The longest of its strands is 5.7mm long. The web contains a wasp leg, a mite, a fly and a beetle. The spider appears to have sucked out the wasp's guts, reports said. The discovery was made in 2003 and was to be published by the magazine Science yesterday.
■ United States
Clarinet houses player
Minnesota resident Roger Busdicker went out on a high note. Busdicker, who was often seen playing his ebony-and-silver clarinet, died last week at age 88 and his daughters thought it befitting to have his cremated remains buried inside the instrument. What didn't fit in the clarinet went into the lining of the case, a relative said. Busdicker toured with the Hal Leonard Orchestra in the 1930s and 1940s before becoming a music teacher in Winona schools. He later co-founded and ran a sheet-music publishing company until retiring in 1985, but he never stopped playing. He owned the clarinet for 50 years.
■ Somalia
Peace deal signed
The country's largely powerless government and a representative of the faction that controls the country's capital signed an agreement that calls for an immediate ceasefire and confers militia recognition on the interim administration. "The parties have committed themselves to cease all media and military campaigns," the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, said at Thursday's signing ceremony, which was presided over by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. "The two parties agreed to reach a compromise that preserves the unity and integrity of Somalia," Moussa told reporters.
■ Canada
Age of consent to rise
Seeking to crack down on sexual predators in the era of the Internet, the government brought in legislation on Thursday that would raise the legal age of consent for sex to 16 from an unusually young 14. Justice Minister Vic Toews said changing the law will bring the country's standards into line with those of several other countries, and he complained that the relatively low age of consent has attracted sexual criminals from more restrictive countries. But the proposal will also allow youngsters to have consensual sex with people up to five years older or younger, even if that means one partner is aged 14 or 15. "Our goal in this legislation is not to criminalize teenage youth who may be involved in sexual activity with their peers," Toews told reporters.
■ Saudi Arabia
`Deviant group' in shootout
Six suspected al-Qaeda-linked militants and a policeman were killed in a shootout in the Saudi capital Riyadh yesterday, after police surrounded their house to prevent an imminent attack, Saudi officials and media said. Police cordoned off the upscale residential district where the shootout occurred. A seventh militant was wounded and arrested. Saudi state television showed police removing several vehicles from the scene, some of them damaged in the clash, as officers carried away what appeared to be bags of evidence. An Interior Ministry statement said the seven were linked to the "deviant group" -- a label used by authorities to describe al-Qaeda.
■ Mexico
Teachers hijack buses
Striking teachers, some armed with machetes and guns, hijacked and burned buses and blocked about 20 highways on Thursday as part of their month-long battle with the state government over pay increases. The teachers blocked the roadways on Thursday in an unsuccessful attempt to stop a march in support of Oaxaca state Governor Ulises Ruiz, and continued to call for Ruiz's ouster. Thousands of people joined the pro-government march, demanding the teachers return to the classrooms, stop violent protests and end their occupation of the historic center of the Oaxaca state capital.
■ United States
North Carolina wins round
A federal appeals court has ruled that North Carolina was entitled to reclaim the state's original copy of the US Constitution's Bill of Rights, seized three years ago from two men in Connecticut. The copy was one of 14 made in 1789. It had been missing since it was stolen from the state capitol at the end of the Civil War and privately sold to various people for nearly 140 years until antiques dealer Wayne Pratt and businessman Robert Matthews bought it in 2000 for US$200,000. In 2003, an FBI agent posing as a museum buyer pretended to purchase the paper from Pratt and Matthews for US$5 million, and seized the document with a court order.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in